Making the most at your workplace with Diana Keith
Are you building a disco corporate culture?
Remember when you were 22 and your life revolved around what club you were going to on Friday night? OK, if you were twenty something in the 80s, it was Tuesday night. Regardless of when your hot spot decade took place, you're probably familiar with social clubs of all kinds.
Your workplace is a social club too. There's usually no music, club clothes or alcohol... except maybe in Brazil. Nonetheless, it is a place where you absolutely get a vibe for what's going on.
This vibe is known as your organizational culture and it's this undercurrent that ultimately determines how work gets done. Your corporate culture contributes to the level of morale, productivity, service, employee conflict and collaboration within your company.
Different corporate cultures produce different results, so you really need to consider what kind of corporate club life you are creating in your business or department.
Corporate Club Crawl Anyone?
Let's do a quick corporate culture club crawl so you can get a feel for what's out there and what's possible. Where do you see your organization and leaders?
Caddyshack Crew
This work environment is exclusivity driven, much like a private country club. An Us versus Them climate exists, which may feel like management versus employees. There may also be a corporate presence that seems disconnected from the workforce, or a dysfunctional micro culture being seeded by a poor leader that holds a department head position. You'll usually see things like high turnover and low morale here. Information is not shared and decisions are usually made without considering the people who work there.
Google Gang
Information and creativity are a high priority and everyone's input counts... At least that's what they tell us... If you're lucky enough to really be part of this kind of culture, then you are working in a solution-focused place where curiosity is rewarded and thinking for yourself is king.
Result City
This company culture is focused on results, creativity, and partnership. They connect people, strategy, and results so that learning and progress are aligned as a powerful hybrid so as to keep everyone motivated and able to deliver.
The Discotheque
The flashy disco leader spins around in one place but really doesn't get anywhere. This leader breeds a culture of confusion and disorganization. Imagine an image of a lone figure out on the dance floor that moves against the beat of the music. They spend a lot of time doing the exact opposite of what they should be doing. To get an image, picture Elaine dancing on Seinfeld.
Where does your company culture need to be pointed?
There is an underlying culture buzz that is determined by informal norms and policies or procedures for how work gets done, how people interact, how much control people have to do their jobs, the level of recognition felt among the staff, and on and on.
Here are some do's and don'ts on getting starting with information gathering for a potential culture change.
-Do assess your culture and make sure you involve your people.
-Don't just hand them a survey with no explanation.
-Don't assess only broad areas; be as specific as possible so you can answer why morale is low, why there is turnover, or why accountability for performance is down.
-Do provide feedback to your people about the results of the assessment.
-Don't send them an email or a confusing memo with lots of statistics.
-Do engage them in a sincere dialog focused on their ideas of how to change the culture.
Start to ask some questions about your culture. Is it working? What kind of results are you getting? How did you get there and how far do you have to go to close the gap on where you want to be?
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