What Culture Are You Creating?

The culture of your organisation is unique and defined by a number of factors including values, traditions, attitudes and behaviours.

A positive workplace culture attracts great talent, encourages great energy and impacts the performance and satisfaction of the organisational workforce. Inversely, a poor workplace culture has the opposite effect on your organisation.            

While the term “Culture” is widely used, there are many organisations who do not understand how it impacts their business or they believe the investment required is too high given the perceived minimal results they will see.

Both of these statements could not be further from the truth. To ensure your business flourishes, it is important to define what “Culture” is and how it impacts your business.

• ‍Myth #1: ‘Culture’ is a buzz word. It has no tangible impact on your business.
  ‍
  Reality: Organisational Culture drives performance.
  ‍
  When referring to culture we are referring to the way in which individuals approach situations that arise and how they develop solutions to deal with these issues. An organisation’s value is determined and managed by those within the organisation. Their performance inevitably impacts the business’s bottom line.
  ‍

• ‍Myth #2: Culture is all about hiring for the “right fit” and finding people who all get along.
  
  ‍Reality: Nobody benefits from only hiring “like-minded” people.
  
  Contrary to popular belief, organisations benefit from engaging a diverse team who have different views and opinions. This diversity augments the organisation culture with new ideas, rather than allow it to become stagnant with entrenched ideas and biases.
  
  Diversity amongst employees will challenge the organisational status-quo, adding a healthy level of dissent will mean that the right solution is agreed on, not the one that offers the least resistance. Culture in an organisation is the way individuals solve the problems, not the absence of problems.
  ‍

• ‍Myth #3: Culture is only relevant to “cool” organisations like Google. It’s not relevant to my business.
  
  ‍Reality: Culture is relevant to all businesses.
  
  Ultimately, culture is relevant to every organisation, even those who are yet to define it. Workplace culture consists of both the explicit and the implicit, both the verbal and written rules that govern how organisations make decisions.
  
  Organisations like Google are known for their amazing culture and employee perks. There is a reasonable argument though, that culture change within an organisation, outside of this industry, would arguably be more effective, for example Accounting. Developing a reputation for having an amazing organisational culture would ultimately give an “uncool” industry the competitive advantage.

If you are not sure where to start or if you would like further information on your  organisational culture – we can help. Just email solve@fiveseven.com.au.