Is company culture serving as a platform of control or
as a platform of empowerment for employees? Part Two of a Two Part Special…
Continuing from part one, it is
important to engineer your company culture through the understanding of the
already existing culture within your company walls along with the people who
shape the organisation into a living, breathing entity! Digging a little
deeper, one should consider the following as very important:
- Vision - Know what you want as a company of 5 so when you reach 50,000 employees, your company culture has evolved continuously, not ‘changed’ on the management orders of the day. Company culture is the personality of a company and does not swap out when you exceed 10,000 employees for a “big company culture”. Understand what you do, who you are and what values you collectively hold as a company. Then set the collected attributes as a cornerstone of company policy so you can build your organisation around it
- Employee Value - Know what personality type makes the best type of skilled and unskilled employee for your organisation. Match the personality propensity (creative/analytical/etc) with the role, team, department and division that makes up your company. What makes them feel like they belong and are part of something great? Management and leadership styles should seamlessly integrate with company culture to answer this question.
- Giver Taker Culture - Know what it is and what mix of giver/matcher/taker you need in your organisation to be great. Insert safeguards to ensure the mix you need and have mapped out in your organisation is actually deployed and protected.
- Feedback - Make sure you engage your employees meaningfully and management have alignment in belief, personality and training including the same style of leadership. Foxes in the henhouse are still dangerous!
- Hire the most suitable, not the “best” - we all love to hate pre-Madonnas, but the truth is the best are not always the most suitable for our organisation. A brilliant mind with a low tolerance for micromanagement will not last long in a company that thrives on hierarchy. Conversely, an individual who is reliant on the security of being micromanaged will not last in a company that values independent thinking and self direction. Remember... Einstein on paper was a Clerk… he also said "Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value." The fact is that value creation comes all shapes and forms. Be sure your company knows what it needs and is able to embrace those value creating employees correctly.
- Flexible By Design - Design your organisation in a manner that protects and grows company culture. Starting with the vision of the founding management team, a well engineered company culture will have processes to observe, define and react to the constantly changing culture over time. Be sure your design features allows company culture to prosper in your growing structures and be protected from harmful forces of all kinds.
Despite the
difficulties, if you embrace the above variables and tips, be flexible in your
vision for your company that is communally shared; take cultural aspects and culturally
based concerns into your decision making processes, you will influence a
company culture that is true to the kernel tenants laid out for your company at
the beginning! What defines a great company is not its great products, but the
great people within its walls. Everything else flows from that…
About
the author: John Mulhall is a Marketing Technologist and newly Minted Software
Developer. John is also a committed blogger and from February 2016 onwards,
will be publishing blogs every second week on topics around Technology,
Leadership and Sustainable Capitalism.
Sources/Credits:
Pics;
Credits;
Einstein Quote from
Brain Quotes at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alberteins131187.html
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