Organizational Culture as a tool for managing Strategy

Corporate reports and websites alike buzz with exalted statements about company values and how they are shared across the organization. Tons of gigabytes go into describing how successful companies have strong cultures and what makes their culture strong. When asked, employees invariably state their affiliation to company values.

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The truth, however, is that values (what is important to people) are ingrained in the human mind at a very early age. Since we are social creatures, the values of the individual mind are very much shaped by the society where she/he grew up, by the social convention about what is acceptable or not.

To deal with life situations people apply values - mostly the early adopted values of their Culture of origin.

 

At the workplace people relate to their work, to colleagues and to outside stakeholders. The way they do that is shaped by the practices (what everyone does) that are applied at this workplace.

To deal with work situations people usually stick to practices - because they will quickly go overboard if they don't.

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You can not make people adopt values. 

But you can enable them to share practices. 

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Our data-driven approach to organizational culture is a diagnostic tool which reveals the actual corporate culture - its strengths, its weaknesses, the real processes that are going on, the gaps in how different organizational levels perceive work, the potential for growth or the early warning signs. We identify practices "as they are" and point to realities, such as:

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• to what extent the company is driven by goals, or by process-conformity

• whether the organization is successful in its relations with customers, or there is more to get

• whether innovation is encouraged, or not

• what motivates employees and how loyal they are to their organization

       to name but a few

 

And then we go beyond the crucial "so what" question.

We work with clients to define what is the optimum culture they need in order to achieve their strategic goals.

Then we assist them to apply practical levers of change which can modify coporate practices in a way that is actually supporting instead of hindering corporate Strategy.