HR people struggle with the concept of Culture at a company. How do you define it?

I like Alan Weiss' definition. "Culture comprises that set of beliefs that governs behavior." Those set of beliefs may be articulate or unspoken. They may be the ones management wants and they may not. HR needs to understand what those beliefs are.

On the surface, culture is a set of behavioral norms, right? However, a better definition is, "Culture is that which is expected, reinforced and rewarded." The expectations, reinforcement and rewards lead to the behaviors we observe.

I think we are missing the point. It doesn't matter what the executives, managers or employees (EMees) believe or what they say. They may all believe the same things that if implemented would create the desired culture. Words are just words but behavior speaks volumes. It is the behaviors of EMs, not the ees, that define the culture. If we want to change the culture, we need to change the behaviors of EMs and the best way to do that is to fire the first executive or manager who steps out of line and behaves in an unacceptable manner. Now we know why culture is so hard to change, the Executives are reluctant to put their own jobs in jeopardy for the good of the organization but they will terminate employees for behaving inappropriately which speaks volumes about the actual culture.

Employees hear and read the words of the executives and managers and they see their facial expressions, including body language, and they notice the tone of their voices and they observe their behaviors.

If the behaviors are not in synch with the words, facial expressions, including body language, and tone of voice, then the culture is defined only by behavior.

If the behaviors are in synch with the words, facial expressions, including body language, and tone of voice, then the culture is defined by any of them since they all mean the same thing.

I define corporate culture as those behaviors that are rewarded by the EMs or that are ignored and/or tolerated by EMs.

Hi Dan

This is a great discussion!

I think we are not making explicit enough the difference between the "management-intended" culture, vs. the "actual culture" that the organization exhibits. What I was referring to in my earlier comments was the latter. What actually happens in the organization. If you (or a skilled OD consultant, if appropriate) ask employees - they know - and they will tell you what it really is.

Most often management approaches the issue of "culture" as something that can be trained into people - what they want or intend to put in place. They discuss it in a management retreat, write it down, and post it on the walls. Then they hold training sessions in it. As we are all saying, in one way or another, the liklihood of this approach having management's intended result is pretty much zero.

What Bob talks about is having the formal leaders role-modelling the desired behaviors - consistently. That works and is essential to maintain a culture - let alone to change it. What is also critical is that the informal leaders of the organization are onboard with the culture you desire. If they are not, many of the change efforts (culture or otherwise) will be thwarted.

The bottom line is that when you are planning change, understanding the "actual culture" - what is expressed in the everyday behavior of the employees is essential to success. If your change management program does not deal with the actual culture effectively, it's success will not be as great as you had hoped it would be.

Charlie is right culture isn't who we say we are it is who we really are. To me it it is the norms and nuances and traditions that hold us together. To a certain extent it is our shared values.
Places like Nike and Zappo's are a work hard-play hard culture. The military is not just a group it is a society and a culture. There are norms and codes of conduct that aren't written down.
Culture morphs and should. Your core values probably don't change over time, but how you express and communicate them does.
Culture is to organizations what character is to individuals. It isn't what you say, it is how you behave to each other, your customers, and your stakeholders.

I think there are some excellent answers in this column, but I would like to share one thing from my experience: I can almost instantly determine what kind of leader a company has by working even briefly with just a few individuals in the organization and/or walking through their office. Culture is established at the top, it does not trickle down - it cascades down, and it is both pervasive and noticeable throughout the organization. So to the HR readers out there, I might suggest working on the boss rather than the employees.

I am co-author of the book Dealing With People You Can't Stand, How To Bring Out The Best In People At Their Worst, (Brinkman & Kirschner, McGraw-Hill, 1994, 2003, 2011, http://www.rickbrinkman.com/store/books/dpcs.shtml, also available as
an audiobook at iTunes and Audible).

Because of that I tend to view culture in an organization as the behaviors both good and bad that are considered acceptable and verboten.

For example, when I did programs for Chevron, they told me they have a term called the “Chevron Yes”. What that means is you are pleasant and agreeable on the surface but that doesn't mean you agree or follow through.

When I would do seminars as part of IBM's leadership series and talk about the Grenade tantrum, consistently half the IBM’ers in the room would say “I can imagine somebody doing the tantrum at work.” While the other half of the room would say, “Oh yes they do!” The difference was the half but couldn't imagine it were IBM’ers who were always at IBM. The half that said “Yes they do”, were IBM’ers who get sent to someone else's facility. As they discussed their corporate culture they realized grenade tantrum was not tolerated. However, they admitted that Tank (attack) and Know-it-all run free as protected species.

I once did a seminar for aerospace firm that was designing planes. They had a lot of engineers on the job who when at work must be in a mode of Get it Right / Perfection. The only problem with that is when in a perfectionist mode you can study things from now till the cows come home and never get it done. What the organization learned to do is you hire a very controlling manager to ride herd on those engineers and make sure the project also gets done. However, in their case it went too far because management by Tank attack was considered an acceptable leadership strategy and even promoted.

I did a program for a software company in the Seattle area, ;-) (not the Evil Empire) ;-). They realized they had hiring practices that effectively weeded out people who needed control or attention at work and pulled in people like to get along and get it right at work. This was a big “Aha” for them about their culture. On the upside “No wonder we're one big happy family and we’re very meticulous about our work.” (Get Along and Get it Right). But on the downside they realized, “No wonder it’s a major miracle to get a decision made in the company.” That’s because everyone was either waiting for consensus (Get along) or studying it in further detail (Get it right).

So I would define the culture of an organization as the behaviors both good and bad that are accepted and unaccepted.

You may never know my beliefs as an individual, but you will see my behavior. Behavior is an external manifestation of my beliefs. Likewise, for a group there are a set of shared values. Culture is merely an external manifestation of the shared values of a group of people.

When people think of corporate culture, they think of office politics, butt-kissing co-workers, inter-office dating and gossip.

A healthier work culture consists of distractions and incentives. Amenities that motivate and allow workers to recharge. The goal should be to have employees view going to work as an extension of who they are instead of waking up every morning to go to a job that rewards them a paycheck and nothing else.

We tell our clients that corporate culture is that which makes working from them different from working for their competitors. ....and I agree completely with those who point out that culture has NOTHING to do with what you say and EVERYTHING to do with what people experience. It is the values of the collective, and how they are exhibited through behavior....no matter what the value and mission statements may say.

Shifting culture requires an honest assessment of where you are, what is in place and how behavior is rewarded and reinforced. Only then can a shift toward 'what is desired' take place.

This definition is taken from our paper, "Obstacles to Effective Organizational Change: The Underlying Reasons" published in the Leadership and Organizational Journal in 2002.

"The emotional environment shared by members of the organization. It reflects how staff feel about themselves, about the people for whom and with whom they work, and about their jobs."

As we all know there is an "official" culture and an "unofficial" often unstated culture. The latter is what employees go by and what your customers feel. It is modeled on what the management does, not what it says. For example if the boss professes "honesty" yest cheats on his expense account the employees will know and they will be more likely to cheat as well. Or they will have a problem with the cheating and will leave. HR needs to be tuned into the "unofficial" culture, understand the disconnet and then work with the management team to correct the problems.

Vision and values are blah blah blah. Lots of organizations have vision and values that paint the organization one way, but act a very different way.

I look at culture in a more tangible way. It is simply the common set of organizational practices (most often undocumented management practices) that craft the day-to-day working environment.

Every organization can come up with glossy magazine stories of someone in the org living the values one time, but how the organization acts day in and day out is indicative of its real culture.

As others have stated, the culture comes from the top. A number of years ago, I worked for a GM who was very hands off in the day to day but understood that strong relationships among his direct reports was critical to the success of the organization. He spent a lot of time making sure his team liked and supported each other.

The corporation, in its ultimate wisdom, replaced this GM with someone whose management philosophy was divide and conquer. Within a matter of weeks, the people who were once supportive of each other turned into back stabbing tattletales. The work environment became toxic. The place is gone now and a big reason for this is the awful culture the new guy brought into the organization.

I owe this guy a lot, though. Ten years ago, I was fired for not being a team player for bringing the dysfunctionality to his attention. Then started my own business and have not looked back. So thanks for teaching me a great lesson on how NOT to manage.

Culture at a Company..... The "real" culture is what goes on behind the scenes and how situations are handled when HR/Management isn't looking.

We can say how we want situations handled, how people should be treated, what we want our priorities to be but when and where the rubber meets the road is when; a employees pushes the buttons of their supervisor, someone makes a $100,000 mistake, a good friend of an employee dies and the employee's time off isn't covered by our circa 1981 policy, someone gets a messy divorce and performance goes South, someone wants to do a fund raiser. These are the types of issues that best help you figure out what kind of culture you have.

Culture is hard to diagnosis unless you live it and are immersed in it. Many people talk about culture after talking to a friend, reading a book, a quick walk through, or 3 days into a new job. That's like a tourist driving through a town and telling everyone how good or bad the place is to live.

Company culture changes hard and dies hard but it can be done one employee at a time. In HR we are culture drivers whether we like it or not. Want to change your company's culture? It's people. "Sheep dip" flavor of the month training doesn't change cultures, new performance reviews systems don't change culture, one person/leader seldom changes culture.

Stepping on soapbox....

Think about the culture of our Country and try to take politics out of it. Our country used to be tops in education, very disciplined with strong and firm discipline in our legal and educational systems, respected and valued for products we manufactured, strong work ethic, Christian values imbedded into our society, leaders in science.....

Where are we today? Where are we headed? 50 years from now do you think a little kid in China or India have the "American Dream"?

Think about what has caused the change and our slow demise. Think about our arrogance and acceptance of mediocrity.... Can this happen to a company? Sure.

Stepping down off soapbox.....

Surround yourself with good people, people who's values match where your company wants to go... don't accept mediocrity. That's how you slowly change a culture.

Have a great day!

Derek Dozer SPHR
http://www.linkedin.com/in/derekdozer
http://twitter.com/HR_Farmer

A simple way to understand the culture of an organization is by asking about the expected behaviors in a variety of situations. In organizations with a strong, consistent culture, you will find the answers are remarkably similar. In organizations where the responses are inconsistent, you may have multiple cultures (like communities), or you may have a lack of cultural context.

Since culture governs expected behavior, it is an important element of organization performance. If you want to change organization performance, you need to understand the culture. As already pointed out, culture can be deeply embedded. So, if the needed changes are in conflict with the behaviors expected in the culture, you will need to use a very focused - - and long term - process to implement the changes you have in mind.

Culture can be very heavily impacted by leaders. This is why, when radical change is needed, a new leader often has a much better chance to succeed, if her/his style inspires the cultural shift that may be necessary.

A huge part of what an organization ultimately produces as results is driven by its culture.

As an HR strategist, I look at corporate culture as the culmination of the values, vision and policies of the organization which lead to its brand in the marketplace. The nature of the culture is shown in how the organization treats its human capital assets. In turn the culture manifests itself in the way the organizations treat its customers.

Our guest on the DriveThru HR Show yesterday was Tim Gardner from Kimberly-Clark, his view on cultural was great for me so thus I wanted to share. Take a listen...
http://ow.ly/51Tqo

Culture is often described as "the way we do things around here". It comprises the symbols, systems and behaviours that operate within the organisation and provide the basis on whch other employees act to fit in.

In a nutshell, I would define corporate culture as the personality of the company. This is impacted by the senior management's expectations and values and how those values are reinforced and rewarded.

As we define culture as traits, behaviors, art, beliefs, religions, etc. I could go on. But the culture of a company is their presentation to the public. What is the public's perception of the company and their service/product? As companies hire new employees HR, managers, and employees we want the new employee to match the company's culture. Are you a good fit?

The comments about behavor speaks louder than words are correct. Execs can say the words, put posters up and do strange things to get points across. Bottom line, what happens when thier done.

An executive that does not hold themselves or others accountable sends the message, "In our culture accountability is not important" thus accountability goes away along with everything else. Yes the Mission/Vision/Values says we are accouontable, but those are just words.

What can HR or anyone in a leadership role do? Create thier own culture within the bounds of thier control and influence. Yes corporate does this, but here were going to do this because it's right. It can and has workded.

I am excited about the answers that have been given to this question !! It is a compelling issue that I feel companies don't adequately address - especially from an HR perspective.

Your answers are well thought out and it shows how much of a factor this is in today's workplace. Thanks for all of your responses !!

Michael, excellent suggestion but it is so much easier to work on the employees rather than the boss and it does not risk your job. The CEO is paid to identify and fix problems yet no one is paid to identify the CEO as the problem when he is the problem.

Excellent topic Steve.

Based on the above discussion, one could infer that corporate culture is defined by the “soft controls” within the organization; i.e., the informal, intangible levers of control such as tone at the top, the organization’s ethical value system; leadership styles; communication; competency; empowerment; management’s philosophy and operating style; etc.

Policies, practices, laws, rules and regulations, then, must have an impact on corporate culture.

In reference to Mark Herbert’s comment, “The military... is a society and a culture,” the military maintains structure and discipline to achieve a desired culture that serves its mission best.

Michael, isn't the unofficial corporate culture the real corporate culture since that is the culture that determines acceptable behaviors?

Would that be the "real" culture vs. the "unreal" culture? LOL

Michael, I like it, yes.

Rick's contribution is a great point - it's not just the behaviors that people are expected to do - it's also the behaviors that people are expected to not do.

Great question Steve. To echo what others have said, Culture is the manifestation of the actual behaviors that occur in the workplace. You can have all the lofty ideals in the world and empty words but it's what people actually do that creates the culture.

Rick and others have it. What I find as did Rick, people create the culture, yet are unaware of what the culture is, thus the behavioral names such as tank.

The people in the organization will create the culture on their own, I term this "Culture by Chance" because top management is not creating or driving the culture they want. Stating it is not creating or driving it "Culture by design".

I do a great deal of Sales development and yes, company culture does dramatically affect sales performance.

"The way things are done around here" Top management will have a different perception of it then those further down the organisation chart. Unless top management is very good at communicating and embedding the culture they want, through their actions and words, rest of the workforce will perceive it as something else. As an HR consultant and trainer I come across this all the time.

Lina, I agree with your observations. For top management to know the front line employees they must actually listen to them. Yes, they may do surveys but too many employees don't trust their managers for fear of retribution, real or imagined.

Executives need to stop selecting managers based on their non-managing experience. Employers often promote their most successful employees to supervisory and management positions and then bemoan the fact that they are less than successful. Seldom ever does the employer admit to making a selection mistake but they do blame the successful employee for not becoming a successful supervisor or manager. Hire/promote for job suitability as a supervisor or manager not for technical competence alone. An MBA means Manager By Acclaim and usually the Acclaim is from the business school that conferred the degree.

Alex, what if we behave similarly but for different reasons? We ought to be very careful to ascribe behaviors to specific beliefs or values. For instance, managers often presume that successful employees have a good attitude therefore unsuccessful employees must have a bad attitude. Attitudes are funny things, we all have them but job success breeds a good attitude and job failure breeds a bad attitude and it is the hiring manager who is at fault when new hires develop a bad attitude.

After working with organizational culture for over 25 years (my thesis was on 'The Relationship Between Leadership, Culture and Performance" - MS Industrial-Organizational Psychology) ... my defintion is very simple:

"An organizational culture is the overall experience people have with an organization. (both external and internal)"

So the bottom line question is: "What experience do you want people to have with your organization - be they internal or external?"

That's it - simple...

It's one thing to define corporate culture, it's quite another to influence it. Savvy HR professionals understand that corporate culture and organizational politics are closely linked concepts. Therefore, being able to influence the influencers will give HR the best shot at positively influencing the beliefs, norms, unspoken rules and behaviors in the organization. This requires leadership skills, social intelligence and communication excellence. Not a small feat. http://amzn.to/vpXPvY

I believe that culture is the organisation's reputation with it's employees, customers and suppliers. That it's never something that can be enforced rather it is what it is - which is to say it's the personality or character of the organisation as an entity, acting as the sum of its parts.