Executive Involvement in Working Cultures:
It is needless to say that having direct Executive involvement carries weight and there are many areas of a business that require their attention. The fluid nature of working cultures being no different. It’s not just an HR Department problem.
However, after reading numerous reports on organisational cultures’ performance I noticed some comments that I thought would be helpful to comment on – these being:
Improving the Working Culture:
Executives and Management frequently make reference to the need to improve “our” culture or “the” Working Culture.
Organisations do not have and never will have, a single working culture and trying to address a single overarching working culture is practically impossible, by the sheer nature that each department, team or group leader is human and your dealing with thoughts and it’s expression – i.e. behaviours. It equates to herding the infamous cats, and trying to get them to all agree and ‘think’ similarly and go in a particular direction.
Employees are dynamic and each chooses the direction they wish to go in life with the help of the company who is employing them. The company is serving a purpose for every single employee and there, lies the power behind cultural direction.
Employees are driven by emotions both theirs and others and these can change by the minute for numerous reasons and this directly affects how they perform their duties, their motivations, their attitudes – everything. They may say they “…are on board”, however their actions and communications may tell another story as they demonstrate they are heading in another direction.
Cultural developments are a by-product of something else – so focusing on improving the culture is not the answer.
Cultures are the “Road Signs” – they need to be read and understood to see which direction the company is going.
