Monday, June 12, 2017

Three Things Company Culture is, Three Things it is Not

The following points are shamelessly stolen from a blogsite called Military Leadership Methods, and is about how the Marine Corps built and is managing its culture.  The U.S Marines are a very long and successful cases study of deliberate organizational Culture management. The article points to three things that company Culture is, and is not ( editor has created the question bits)

1.  It is the result of  collective interactions.
2.  It Is not "owned by anyone". Even North Korea Culture is influenced by how Kim Jung Un's  leaders choose to react to his control.

Who owns the culture here? The answer shouldn’t just be the boss or any one person. Is everyone encourage to engage in culture discussion? If leadership is not looking through a wide lenses at culture it can miss the people who are talking about it, leaving you exposed when it changes without you.

2.  Culture exists in every company every minute every day. Sometimes We try to influence it by deliberate events. The events only influence the culture. 

2.  Culture is not a set of standards. The Real Culture is not what people say. It is more. It is how they interact with tasks and people, what  they say, do, and the choices they make when no one is looking.

 Is culture an “all the time” thing? If you are doing an event or two a year to “grow the team”, I can assure you that you are not driving culture, but it is happening. Don’t allow the discussion around who you are to be limited to an event, make culture something you talk about in meetings, performance reviews and with 1-on-1’s. You don’t need to announce it just weave it in, all the time.


3.  Culture Is a dynamic movie . It changes by means of every new person or leader you hire, every new product you develop, every new customer, every new competitor.

3.  Culture is not a snapshot. Any attempts to keep it frozen by leadership will cause a personality split between what the real culture is and what The leadership says it is.

– Change requires direction and attention, not resistance. As your company grows the culture will adjust to include the ever growing diversity in your workforce. Your leadership role is to help steer, not to ensure that nothing ever changes, because everything changes.
Marines believe they are the greatest fighting force on the planet. They will stand and fight when others would run because the culture permeates through every Marine. This way of thinking is not an accident, it is done on purpose all the time, in training, in briefings, and in how we celebrate our heritage. You can have that same effect in your organization.

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