You probably already heard and read about company culture, but it may still be unclear to you what it exactly is. That is because a thing like the culture is not something tangible\u00a0and you\u00a0can not easily put it into words. It bases around common values a group of people shares.
There are many\u00a0source materials you can find on company culture, but we will try to add our own\u00a0two cents based on personal experience.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
To illustrate in simple terms how we see company culture, let\u2019s imagine the following scenario:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
A farmer wants to sell flour and for that, he needs to grow corn. To grow corn, he needs to have the right soil and weather\u00a0conditions.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
In this example, you can think of flour as the company\u2019s product, the corn as the company\u2019s employees, and soil as the company culture. To produce a great product, you need the right people to commit to it, and for those people to thrive you need to cultivate the right culture suitable to their needs.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The right way of doing things is highly subjective. While it is true that\u00a0not\u00a0every plant can grow on any soil, it is also true that\u00a0not every farmer wants to sell the same thing. Once you have a clear vision of your company\u2019s future, it becomes more apparent what type of employees you need and what type of culture they need to sustain them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Company culture defines important aspects of the work environment. If you don\u2019t fit, coming to work will be stressful. When people think about quitting their job, it mostly has nothing to do with the tasks at hand. It probably has more to do with how they feel when working with their colleagues. If interacting with your colleagues causes constant friction, it will most likely wear you down. Like Muhammad Ali said, \u201cIt isn\u2019t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out, it\u2019s the pebble in your shoe.\u201d
On the other hand, when people feel happy, they will make their colleagues feel\u00a0good too, creating a positive feedback loop motivating everyone to do their best.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Another aspect is decision making. Employees make small decisions every day in their work life. If there is an established culture in the company, it can help them decide with the company\u2019s values in mind. You could be a developer-facing a dilemma to write code that will execute fast but will be hard to understand by others or execute slower but will be easier to maintain. By thinking about your company culture and what values it favours, you can have a much easier time making the right decision. Is your company culture guided by a statement \u201cPerformance overall.\u201c, or is it \u201cKeeping things organised.\u201d?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
We all probably agree on everything read in online articles about company culture, but when it comes to implementing it, things get hard. It is because company culture is not established the moment we\u00a0write something down (decide on things and write them down), it comes to life only once everyone starts to feel it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Here is an example from when I have worked in a large IT company:
One day we attended a\u00a0presentation about\u00a0company culture. A high-level manager, that was mostly unknown to us developers, held the presentation. He talked about what work environment the company strives to achieve and he gave us 13\u00a0different guides we should think about in our daily routine. He encouraged us to use those guides in our daily communication in order for everyone to get familiar\u00a0with\u00a0them. For example, a colleague sends me an email asking me to help him to which I respond with a solution and also put a guide number 7 \u201cNo man left behind.\u201d at the bottom of the email.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Even though the idea was well-meant\u00a0and we all agreed that the guides made sense,\u00a0it did not last long.\u00a0A high-level manager giving us that presentation was an attempt to build a culture overnight. It failed because it is hard to convey certain feelings to a group of people you have just met.
The only way you can truly establish a culture is by example. You do not need anything written down, just communicate well and be authentic. It takes longer to\u00a0build a strong culture throughout the deepest parts of your organisation, but the benefits are overwhelming.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
If my father were to read this article, he would probably comment something like: \u201cThe folks today only think about having fun. A job is not supposed to be fun, it is hard work that you do so you can feed your family.\u201d
Our parents grew up in times where manual labour was the most accessible\u00a0type of work. Your performance\u00a0was measured just by how many boxes you moved. Going to work was a necessary evil to pay your bills. This,\u00a0of course,\u00a0is a generalisation and I am sure some people felt different, but the point is that\u00a0times have changed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Something that took 50 people to do in a day, modern machinery does in an hour. More and more jobs keep disappearing while new ones emerge.
The shift from manual labour is happening towards a more creative type of work where just an\u00a0idea can\u00a0make a billion-dollar difference.\u00a0Who would have known that one day people would earn money by posting pictures, playing games, reviewing things, etc?
It becomes more and more important to create a work environment where creative ideas and collaboration can spark.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Simon Sinek said, \u201cIf you don\u2019t understand people, you don\u2019t understand business.\u201d and he is right. We can not think about employees as just a bunch of people doing their job. We have to understand where they are coming from and what motivates them. Setting the right culture will attract the right people making them feel like a part of something bigger than themselves, and at that point, any hurdle becomes just a new opportunity to prove the rest of the world how great they are as a team.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You probably already heard and read about company culture, but it may still be unclear to you what it exactly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n