Introduction
It is expressed in the organization’s inner workings, member self-image, future expectations, and interactions with the outside world. It is an organization’s philosophy, experiences, expectations, which also includes the values that guide member behavior. It is organizational culture. The way these beliefs, customs, attitudes, drafted and undrafted rules are shared, developed, and considered valid is culture. Culture can also include the organization’s system, assumptions, habits, beliefs, norms, language, vision, symbols, and values. The easiest way to define it is that organizational culture is simply, quoted by Deal and Kennedy, “The way things are done around here.” The way these cultures are created is based on a variety of factors. These factors are early values, assumptions, and goals, founders values and preferences, and industry demands. How an organization’s culture is managed is through new employee onboarding, organizational rewards system, leadership, and attraction-selection-attrition. Managing this could also mean analyzing the identification of the internal and external business conditions that could potentially hurt your business. The pros for managing and creating a positive organizational culture is easy accountability, higher job satisfaction, and boost in productivity and the cons are having a dysfunctional culture and having a company have a set of beliefs that the employees do not agree with.
Pro: Higher Job Satisfaction
Because organization culture likes to refer to the values and beliefs that have been existing in the organization for a long period of time, the values of the staff and the value of their work will definitely influence their behaviors and attitudes. Managers usually modify their leadership behavior for each employee to get their possible best and trust and to achieve the mission of the company. This is why it is so important to figure out the values of your employees and try to connect them with the mission of the organization. By managing the organization’s culture, managers can directly influence the employee’s attitude and behavior. For example, if an employee is working for a company that is pro Trump and supports everything he does and that employee is Democrat, he is not going agree with their values at all. Either that employee is going to quit as soon as finds this out and give that company a bad name to everyone he knows or the employee is going to feel guilty and almost put no effort in their work each and every day. When there is a positive interaction between the way organizational culture is managed and employees, the organization is going to prosper, the latter will be heartened to accomplish the objectives and mission appointed by the organization, thereby embellishing job satisfaction. Another example is when nurses describe their managers. Most nurses usually describe them as being caring and supportive. Having a good manager that the employee is satisfied with will provide opportunities, share values, and will believe in an equilibrium of power. They have a monstrous effect on the way the employees feel about themselves and about the company. Because organizational culture is the glue that holds it together, having a strong culture that connects with the employees and has similar values with them will help everyone achieve their goal. Job satisfaction is easily attainable when employees can do their work that is appointed to them by the organization.
Pro: Boost in Productivity
One of the pros and arguably the most important is the boost in productivity. This means more money! There are three things that managers need to do before this can follow: focusing on employee morale, adaptability, and employee engagement. When managing your organization’s culture and making it a positive one, many things can occur. Imagine an employee working for a small city company and imagine him dreading the ride to work everyday because he knows what his schedule is going to be like for the rest of the day. Everyone has seen cartoons of this miserable man and can almost picture the working conditions, very little interaction with other people, awkward silences near the coffee machine, and no real satisfaction when doing something good; however, if that company begins to be more encouraging and focuses a lot more on motivating the employees, then they are going to see people start delivering some actual quality. If the organization promotes a family like environment and makes their employees feel appreciated, employees are going to be a lot more productive. When an employee dreads his job and his manager and does not have his assignment finished on time, he thinks about himself and himself only. “How will this affect me? Am I going to get fired? I cannot afford to lose a job right now?” Nevertheless, if he respects the manager, actually likes working there, and actually feels like his work means something, then his mindset will be slightly different. He will not just think of himself, but also his manager and others. “He trusted me and was really counting on me and I let him down! I cannot let him down! How is my team going to succeed if I am slacking” When employees start to feel a sense of pride and ownership in their work, not just the productivity, but also the quality will boost. Managers need to make their employee’s work not feel like work, but almost like a hobby. They need to make them feel like this is what they have wanted to do their entire life growing up and simply because of who they are doing this for. A boost in productivity means that there is a slight variation in the output. This clearly means that the employees and workers are putting products out or finishing them at a rate that is faster than before. As a result of this, an increase in money is going to occur as well. Which is never a bad thing for any company trying to expand and grow.
Con: Dysfunctional Culture
A personality to a human is like the culture to a company. Having a dysfunctional organizational culture can lead to a decline in production and sales. The thought of wanting to rise to the top can do more damage than good. By having every employee only worry about themselves and on getting themselves to the top will create so much turmoil and unnecessary internal competition that will distract the employees from reaching the company’s goal. The self-interest to their own personal goals rather than the company’s will only create a less funcional company. Imagine it is your first day of work and someone is training you and they have this type of philosophy in their head. They are showing you how to do everything, but not really showing you because they do not care. They do not care whether or not you know how to do your job right. They only care about their work ethic. Now imagine this same person training someone new every week or every month. Eventually this will catch up to the company and only make them plummet. The company is going to go bankrupt having spent so much money hiring and training new employees for them to not know who to do their job right. How are consumers going to trust the company if they do not trust the employees working and creating their products for them? Also, on occasions there is a negative response to competition. Some employees may feel like they are being pressured too heavily and will consider themselves not fit for the company, then the company loses a loyal employee. Companies could develop a culture that supports unethical and immoral competitive behavior. Regular backlash and the demise of the organization could be the result of unethical competitive tactics. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Because people try to rise to the top and only focus on themselves they lose sight of the goals of the company and only focus on their needs and wants. This is one of the worst things that can happen to any company. No one wants to work for one where each employee only looks out for themselves. How is any company supposed to grow if no one is out there watering the plants. No one wants to waste a minute of their time to go look out for the plants and make sure they are getting the right resources for survival. When all a manager wants is employees practicing and incorporating the company’s values into their work schedule.
Con: Misalignment
While having a culture could be a great thing, it can also be a bad thing. Any kind of culture is a double-edged sword where the culture can either be a positive force to the employees or a negative one. When it is positive, both these implicit and also explicit messages can drive a company to its goal; however, when it is a negative one, the culture can erode its people and the business that comes with it. It does not matter how illustrious the words of the mission statement sound or seem, it will never inspire the employees and staff if the organizational culture does not support it. Personally for me, before any big job meeting or big game, I like to remember what i’m playing for and why I play for the team i’m playing for. If a manager, or coach in my case, is explaining the culture of the company and you just can not pick out the words to where you can agree with him and help him succeed, then you are on the wrong side. The culture that the organization provides the means of rendering the mission into action. Having the sense that the valid values of the organization are aligned with the mission, relationships, empowerment, communication, all of these play a huge factor in determining whether or not the employees can accomplish the manager’s vision for the small business. At the end of the day, the manager can not do everyone’s work for them. He can just lay out the foundation and expect you to understand, figure it out, and get the job done. As stated in the paragraph before, if the employee does not agree with the values of the company, there is no way he is going to be able to continue working for them. He needs to be removed. This means that it is going to be a lot harder finding employees to fulfill the role that they keep searching for. Because employee relationships tend to form a social circle, some of them tend to think the same or make each other think the same. If one does not support it then it will only multiply and more and more will continue to look at the company’s beliefs as unjust. This will create a decline in staff and who knows, maybe after hearing what the employees think of the company, no one is going to want to work for them. Having the employee and the company’s culture on the same page will only bring profit and harmony. A company is like an orchestra, it is not going to work if everyone is in sync and on the same page.
How to solve this
Whenever the culture of the organization goes bad, it always has something to do with the type of trust at the top level of the organization. Usually whenever a culture goes bad, it never has to do with the business, in fact, it is because of the energy in the company is sinking to the bottom of the sea. Something in the highest level of the organization shifted in the other direction. People could have taken sides or they just do not believe in the values anymore. Regardless, it is easy to fix, but could take some time. Companies need to start to realize that there is an issue, be humble about it, no matter of past success,, and look to solve it. First, companies need to begin by implementing the values of the culture into their day to day regular activities. Whenever they are on break, try and create a scenario where the values need to be put into effect and see which employees follow guidelines. Secondly, companies need to begin rebuilding the culture. No culture is going to come back in one day, the same way it took months for it to go South, it will take the same time or more to come up back North. Set the values in stone and make sure everyone is in tune with them. One instrument that is finely untuned and the whole song is not going to sound the same. In fact, the whole orchestra could pay the price for the one not noticing. Finally, look to maintain the progress that the company has already had. Maintaining a culture that was not doing very good in the first place and completely turning it around is a timely process. It requires constant care and attention. Companies need to be honest with themselves. The past is the past. Whatever worked back then might not work now. They need to be prepared to make necessary improvements. As my coach used to say, “You are only as strong as your weakest link.”
Conclusion
Having a dysfunctional culture and having a company have a set of beliefs that the employees do not agree with are cons of managing organizational culture and having easy accountability, higher job satisfaction, and boost in productivity are the pros in creating a positive organizational culture. Through new employee onboarding, organizational rewards system, leadership, and attraction-selection-attrition is how an organization’s culture is managed. Organizational culture and its importance in the community is beginning to be emphasized and discussed more and more repeatedly. By looking at the vendors, clients, and employees, people could see the type of impact the organizational impact has from many different angles and perspectives. Developing a culture is easy, however, maintaining it is when it begins to get difficult. It is the fundamental beliefs of the company that are shared by employees and accepted by clients. Managers tend to consider this culture as a persuasive control tool that influences the thoughts and values of the people. Without having a set of beliefs, values, and a common goal, you are just a common group without a cause.