It is not the intention in this space to theorize academically about the concept "organizational culture", its components, types of culture and other classifications, of which a large amount of recommended literature is available to the reader.
Instead, I am interested in sharing some practical considerations about the need to stop seeing organizational culture, as a theoretical, abstract, gray, rigid body and what is “better not to mess with” as I recently heard in a company.
Rather, it becomes a measurable management indicator, and perhaps essential in the development of business strategies and objectives, as long as its components are continually analyzed and validated.
I always had the feeling that culture and “business” run down opposite lanes, on this imaginary highway that leads to the fulfillment of the goals of any Organization, or that culture is “something that is there”, like someone who stores objects in the back of their house and "as long as they don't disturb, I don't remember that they exist".
Many managers with whom I have to interact, still link the concept of "culture" with philosophy, anthropology or a range of knowledge that, although very interesting, "is very theoretical and far from business," as they often express.
Culture is not foreign to you, because you are culture!
Empirically, the concept "organizational culture" encompasses the dynamics through which an Organization interprets needs, decides strategies, manages processes and maximizes profitability.
This dynamic of "interpreting, deciding, managing and maximizing" is materialized by the people who make it up at all levels of the Organization, and can be read, at the time, as the way in which these people "enjoy and / or suffer" the Organization of which they are a part.
Organizational culture is visualized through the way of managing (meeting objectives and their impact) and through the behaviors, knowledge, business decisions and individual and group commitments of those who comprise it.
This visible part is actually the effect of how what some call the primary shaping factors of a culture (mission, vision, values, myths, principles, norms) are perceived, valued and experienced by the members of the Organization.
The breaking point, is observed when given a goal, Organizations interpret, decide and manage by trying to suddenly modify "the visible" that is; Behaviors thickening Knowledge as the quick solution for achieving Commitment (eg “from now on, we create the culture of Innovation: therefore, from today, everyone must contribute proactivity and creativity, as a means to achieve our goals! !!); nice harangue for a locker room, a coach would say.
In reality, what is essential first is to agree on the link and the impact that the aforementioned primary shaping factors will generate on the way to the intended business scenario.
Just from there, define the Behaviors and the way to measure and evaluate them, create instances of development of Knowledge, and Commitments facing the Business Objectives that drive the need for change.
These instances involve the implementation of a process that must be facilitated gradually but steadily to achieve:
- Competitive advantages: understanding them the efficient combination of capacities and resources that allow the Organization to be differentiated from its competitors. Proposed business objectives (more income, more customers, cost reduction, generation of business value, etc.), and, fundamentally that customers choose us again.
In this sense, working the "organizational culture" is not an aspect alien to the reality of the business, but is the essence by which an organization establishes competitive advantages and maximizes its profitability by and through the people that comprise it.
The culture of sculpting culture
Experience through our consulting interventions, teaches me that successful companies “mess with” their culture, considering their shaping aspects, as an essential management indicator when making business decisions.
This is what I call "sculpting" culture: making and shaping it day by day, not from intention, but from management.
For this reason, it must be conceived as dynamic and flexible to the needs of the business, which perhaps constitutes in itself a paradigm to overcome.
Today, when there is so much talk of “knowledge management”, it should be understood that the first step towards it consists of re-knowing yourself, that is, looking at yourself in the face of a project or strategic objective of corporate scope, reviewing the essential factors of the current culture and test them, contrasting them with this projected situation, and detect the gap.
The light interpretation of the concept "Knowledge Management" leads to confusion. A company does not gain anything by having a high level of knowledge, as long as it does not transform them into profitable competitive advantages if possible, faster than its competitors.
The implementation of profitable competitive advantages, supposes firstly to develop the management of the re-knowledge; This is to review / align / contrast / validate the component factors of the organizational culture and its link with the business objectives.
The management of the re-knowledge supposes:
1. Consider that culture is not unchangeable, nor a dogma with which not to mess with. On the contrary, managing it, that is, intervening its shaping factors, is the first step.
2. Manage the culture (continually get to know each other), prevent or alert about possible unintended consequences of the changes to be made according to the projected business situation.
3. We are talking about a more complex process than acquiring knowledge and commitment through a course, e-learning platform or an “outdoor”, which often, by not reviewing the shaping factors, suggest practices that in themselves are not good or bad, but that go against the current culture or simply, they are innocuous for the concretion of objectives, in “that” specific culture.
4. It is necessary to establish the relationship between "organizational culture" and "competitive advantages". It's more; These should be the externalization of its shaping factors, that is, of the culture itself.
Competitive Advantages and Organizational Culture… or the organizational culture as a competitive advantage ?:
"It is the third year in a row that I have presented a culture project to the Management Committee and I have not been approved for it…" This is how an HR executive member of a major service company recently opened up to us.
“It is not that we are not interested; in fact we can not say that it is not interesting, what we do not understand… ", stated us, for his part, the Director of Corporate Sales of the same business group.
Did the “culture project” not interest or… was it not transmitted in the business language that the interlocutor needed to hear?
I attend assiduously to presentations supported by colorful PowerPoint with charts, citations, classifications, diagnoses and definitions of organizational culture, which simply remain.
In this sense, the exhibitors do not generate the slightest influence on the audience to which they are directed; from their peers in other areas, and less, much less to the shareholders of their Company who fail to interpret the need to invest a penny "in those rolls."
What relationship exists between culture and business in this company?
What is the business of this company for Human Management?
How and how much will your "Culture Project" contribute in the 25% increase in expected profitability "?
"What does" culture "have to do with the seller who has to go to the fields and get wet up to the waist to place our products?"
Do we amortize the investment of the Project with the profitability that it will generate?
Is your project self-financing?
Many times I have heard questions of this nature, and believe me that rarely convincing answers from HR areas, are supposed to be ideologues and direct executors of these projects.
One possible answer is to install processes aimed at managing culture to turn it into a "competitive advantage". This involves taking a consistent first step in knowing how that culture is perceived, based on the following criteria:
It is valuable: It is articulated in such a way with the business that it helps the organization to neutralize threats or exploit opportunities. Alert about risks or allow, from the validity of its factors, create business opportunities that allow development and growth of its two most valuable assets: Human Capital and clients.
It is unique: It is perceived and valued as a benchmark of coherence between its discourse and its business practice. She experiences the values she proclaims and is an example of integrity and fairness.
It is difficult to imitate: Perception of a solid, but flexible, consolidated but dynamic culture, with low cost but high quality, solving the short term, but betting on long-term development, with the mind of a small businessman but with multinational strategies, demanding with people, but tolerant of error. In other words, a culture capable of managing the constant tension between opposites, or what I call “paradoxical” cultures. A culture capable of managing the paradigm of contradiction, at the time, the one currently in force in the business world.
Probably, some questions related to starting to go through the management of re-knowledge, considering a project, could be: "Is our culture a competitive advantage today?", "Does our culture exceed the aforementioned criteria?", "Is our perception culture as valuable, unique and difficult to imitate? ” "What concrete impact does this perception have on our business?" "Which of the shaping factors of our culture should we test to continue growing?", "What impact will the proposed objective have on the current perception of culture in force in this Organization"?
And finally, I ask myself, what new projects, no matter how challenging and profitable they seem, can materialize in a culture that is NOT perceived as valuable, unique and difficult to imitate? "Will they be sustainable and generators of entrepreneurial value?"
A success story
"We want to turn our company into a plant for ideas… I need us to install the culture of innovation." More or less, this was the requirement that a major company recently raised for us.
I honestly don't know what culture is. What I do know is that it consists of a series of factors that, from how they are experienced, lived or ignored, have a direct impact on decisions that can make or lose many millions.
Therefore, such factors must necessarily be linked to a business objective, in this case, “the culture of innovation”.
In this sense, the process still in force basically consists of a series of well-differentiated stages, as shown below:
Note that the articulation of assistance allows transforming what was originally a "project" related to culture, to install a continuous process of cultural alignment or "sculpting" lasting and validated with the business variables of this particular company.
The results show us that through this process, during the first year, this entelechy called “culture”, contributed by continuously measuring its components to considerably increase the “entrepreneurial value” of this company (that is, millions); Something that sounded great, but no one knew what it had to do with the intended scoreboard.
Of course, each intervention requires the implementation of specific and situational techniques and methodologies that I will not develop in this space.
In summary, fortunately many companies see the need to start reconciling culture and business. That is, start "digging deep" but with practicality and business vision.
To the extent that many HR managers still recite very nice theories, but far from the table of results, they will not cease to be perceived as "those-who-assemble-the-rooms-for-the-courses". Painful, but starkly true.
