The Importance of Company Work Culture
- Posted by J. Nirdosh Reddy
- On January 3, 2017
- Company Culture
Recently, a lot has been said about the importance of the culture of an enterprise for its survival. Louis Gerstner, retired Chairman and CEO of IBM said “I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game – it is the game” in his book Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance.
Engaging the minds of your employees in building and strengthening the culture of your enterprise creates a win – win – win environment for your customers, your company and your employees at the same time. Your customers win by getting better products or services, your enterprise wins by improving its bottom line, and your employees win by improved job satisfaction.
Company Culture – Emergence of its importance
The increased emphasis being given to a company’s culture for its survival is a relatively new phenomenon.
Technology – The differentiator
In the early part of the last century, what was needed to run organizations effectively were 4 M’s – Machines, Materials, Methods and Men – in that order. Technology was the differentiator of winners. Technological advances in machines and materials provided the enterprises with competitive advantage. Employees were viewed as secondary, the ones needed to keep the machines going. They were viewed as a dime a dozen.
Culture – The differentiator
With the passage of time, technology became widely available. For most organizations, it no longer provided the differentiating advantage. When the playing field got levelled, a paradigm shift occurred. Dr. W. Edwards Deming emphasized that management needs to focus on delighting customers to stay in business; adopt process oriented thinking to improve their competitiveness; and put everyone in the organization to work toward this goal. His ‘14 obligations of management’ lead to the development of Total Quality Control which was renamed as Total Quality Management. His teachings became the central features of the culture of an enterprise. These went on to become the differentiators between the winners and the rest.
The dimensions of culture
The culture of an organization is how it thinks and behaves toward its customers, employees, suppliers and stakeholders. It is a product of the style of management and pervades the entire organization. It impacts everyone in the organization and those with whom the organization interacts.
Cultures of organizations can be characterized by their demonstrated commitment on three dimensions – Customer focus, Process focus and People focus. How well an organization is performing on these three parameters is an indication of its underlying effectiveness and efficiency and, consequently, its survival.
Customer focus
‘Delight the customers, don’t merely satisfy them’, we are told many times. It is easier said than done. How many of us have internalized it?
We know our external customers. That is easy. Do we realize that there are internal customers – those who receive our output, add value to it and pass it on to the next person? Do we make an attempt to understand what they need OR do we merely do what we think is right from our and our boss’s perspective?
Has bureaucracy and hierarchy hijacked customer focus in your organization?
What can you do to allow your employees to participate fully?
Institute internal customer satisfaction as a top priority. Encourage your employees to view their internal customers as the ones who are paying their salaries; to understand their pain and to make every effort to meet and exceed their expectations.
Process focus
In some ways, the concept of process-oriented thinking is very old. In some ways, it is recent. The question is whether process-oriented thinking is institutionalized throughout the organization. Process management is a nascent methodology. The truth of the matter is that, in terms of efficiency and competitiveness, those who practice it are much farther ahead of those who don’t.
When things go wrong, the conventional practice is to ask ‘who did it’ and blame someone. Blaming people for no fault of theirs and failing to address inadequacies in the system has fatal consequences. This style of management leads to massive inefficiencies that in turn lead to lack of competitiveness.
In many organizations, several key processes such as product development, business planning, people development, etc. are not well defined. Wherever processes are not clearly defined, people resort to fire-fighting, which leads to inefficiencies.
What can you do to allow your employees to participate fully?
- When things go wrong, first ask what in the process broke down, not ‘who did it’
- Encourage them to define, in clear terms, all critical processes
People focus
Perhaps more books have been written on the topic of ‘unleashing the potential of employees’ than any other people-related topic. How successful are you in achieving your goal of unleashing the potential of your employees? If you are like many others, you probably find that the prevailing organizational system does not allow you much freedom and flexibility.
Understanding the power of process-oriented thinking by senior managers makes it easier to tap into the unutilized potential of employees. As discussed in my post on ‘results come from processes’, move from managing people to managing processes through people.
People are the most important asset an organization has. We take great pains to maintain our physical assets in good working condition through regular maintenance, preventive maintenance and periodic enhancements. Are we taking similar care to maintain and enhance the capability of our people? Are we fully utilizing their potential?
What can you do to allow your employees to participate fully?
- Engage the minds of employees in problem solving
- Enhance the skill levels of your employees
- Celebrate their successes
Make your enterprise an exciting place to work
Any strategy to survive in this highly competitive environment needs to rigorously address the above three dimensions of organizational culture.
Life is full of reciprocities. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
People spend most of their waking hours at the workplace. If you make your company an exciting place to work, employees’ heart and soul would be involved in the conduct of the business. They will take pride in what they do and it will be reflected in every action they take.
By creating a culture of customer – process – people focus as described above, you can make your enterprise an exciting place to work.
Good luck!
J. Nirdosh Reddy
I hope you find the contents of our blog posts informative. As always, we are available to help you on your journey of transformation to world class excellence.
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