What is Organisational Culture?
Organisational culture is a set of shared beliefs, values and attitudes that characterise the organisation. Culture influences how people behave within the organisation, and how they make decisions. Companies that have strong cultures also tend to be more effective, as employees are able to make better decisions and work together effectively. Organisational culture is influenced by its founders and current employees. Those organisations where everyone works towards a common purpose will have a stronger culture than those who don't.
Organisational culture is a set of shared beliefs, values and attitudes that characterise the organisation.
Organisational culture is all about how an organisation, or a group of people, thinks and behaves. It's the way that things are done, what is right and what is wrong. An organisational culture can be expressed in many ways such as:
Behaviours – how we behave
Language – what words we use
Attitudes – how we think about things
The culture influences the way people act.
You’ve probably heard of the term “organisational culture” before. It refers to an organisation's values, beliefs, norms and practices. When people use this term with you, they're asking:
How do you act?
How do you make decisions?
How do you communicate with each other?
How do your employees behave toward each other?
Culture has a big impact on these things because it sets expectations for how we should behave in certain situations. For example: if someone at work says something offensive about a member of your family or culture, what would be the most likely reaction from an employee with strong organisational culture? They would probably tell them off because they understand that there is a zero tolerance policy for discrimination at their workplace.
It influences decision making, how people communicate, how they behave towards each other, and how they perceive outsiders.
Culture influences the way people communicate and behave towards each other, how they make decisions, and how they interact with outsiders.
To give you an example of how culture influences decision making: let's say you're working at a startup in Silicon Valley where it's all about being fast and nimble. You need to make a quick decision about whether or not to hire someone to join your team, but there are some red flags that have come up during the interview process. Your boss asks for your thoughts on hiring him (or her), but he (or she) is not what you were hoping for based on their resume and skillset. Do you have any advice for your boss?
Organisations that have strong cultures also tend to be more effective and make better decisions.
When an organisation has a strong culture, it tends to be more effective, make better decisions and be successful. Organisations with strong cultures are also more likely to be innovative, productive and have happy employees.
Strong cultures are often built from the top down—by senior leaders who set the tone for their organisations. But once established, culture can also grow from within an organisation as members adopt similar behaviours or attitudes.
Organisational culture is influenced by its founders and employees who work there at any one time.
Organisational culture is influenced by its founders and employees who work there at any one time. It can't be controlled or changed by one person, but it has to be maintained over time through the way people act and communicate. This can include how they dress or their body language, as well as how they speak with each other. The founder's vision for the company has an influence on what type of culture gets created, while external factors such as competitors also have an effect on this culture.
Culture is more important for effective performance than structure.
The most important thing to know about organisational culture is that it's more important than structure, strategy, management, leadership or technology. Culture trumps all of those things because it influences how you behave and what you do.
It's the reason why some teams can achieve amazing results under difficult conditions; others struggle despite having all the resources imaginable at their disposal.
Organisational culture is not about what happens in an organisation – it’s about how people feel about working there and why they are motivated to stay or leave.
Organisations with strong cultures tend to be more effective than those without.
Culture is more important than structure.
Culture is more important than strategy.
Culture is more important than leadership (although leaders have a big role to play in creating and maintaining culture).
Culture is more important than technology (although technology plays an increasingly significant role in influencing how organisations work, it cannot be relied upon to create or maintain a strong organisational culture).
People are part of the solution but not all of it; no amount of great people will compensate for weak organisational culture, and conversely an organisation with weak people can still create a strong culture if its leaders set out clear values that everyone can agree on or work towards (this might mean working harder than others at times - see point 6).
Conclusion
So, the next time you or your organisation have a problem, think about the culture of your team. Does the culture support decision making? Does it encourage people to innovate? If not, what can you do to make changes in how you run your company and how people are managed? And once those changes are made, be sure to share them with us!
“Emma at brilliant teams has brought so much joy into our team. As a scale up we had some huge growing problems in our business but Emma has transformed our team and culture - I highly recommend her to anyone who needs to see positive change in their culture and teams””