Should corporate culture be set by general employees, or should it be defined by upper management?

Corporate culture is ultimately set by senior management, either actively or passively. In the absence of proper leadership, it will definitely be set by the general employees or someone else in the organization.

The culture is built up by the actions of the people that are hired, the behaviors that are rewarded within the organization, and the behaviors that are punished within the organization. This is independent of whatever is *said* by senior management.

In the event that the senior management team abdicates its role in defining the culture, it will develop somewhat arbitrarily at lower levels, depending on the strength of the organization's other leadership levels.

Corporate culture is defined by outlining what behaviors and outcomes are desirable for the organization, and then following through by acting in a consistent way that matches these stated definitions, and rewarding/discouraging employee behaviors in accordance with the stated definitions. Inconsistencies between stated definitions and observed rewards/incentives will adversely impact the culture.

-ASB: http://XeeMe.com/AndrewBaker

I think ultimately it begins in the C-Suite. corporate culture is defined as what people actually do (behaviors) as opposed to what they say. Senior management must be committed to setting the tone and them listening to make sure it resounds all the way down to the individual contributor.

Why does culture have to be "set"? Shouldn't it be a living and breathing entity that ebbs and flows as the organization and it's people evolve? I think trying to more deliberately trying to direct a culture can be a slippery slope. Culture is an outcome of so many variables - some of them human, some of them not. It is not, however, a program or an agenda or a set of guidelines.

The complexity of culture - personal, national, corporate all mixed into one within which lies much strata. Working with global executives in multinational organizations going through the globalization process, I can guarantee you that, as it has been said, 'culture eats strategy for breakfast'.

Understanding that the corporate culture has to be defined from a strategic point of view - what are the expectations when working and collaborating towards a successful business outcome within the organization - then needs to be reinforced through I do what I say, I say what I do : walk the talk, talk the walk with viral implementation.

Leadership in the 21st century where geo-dispersed teams come together virtually is all about information flow. If corporate culture is left to develop on its own, national culture will take over and the organization will find itself with conflicting values and views.

Defining a clear culture gives employees a language to use and terminology to define expectations especially when words like accountability and empowerment have no equivalent in many other languages. If the word doesn't exist, the concept can't exist. Defining culture with its behaviors, values, beliefs and assumptions enables employees around the world to be aligned and committed to the big picture - a global outlook applied locally

Defining corporate culture is a evolutionary process requiring input from employees but ultimately sitting with upper management who have a greater stake in the success of the company brand, reputation and recognition in the market.

General Employees should be well versed in the corporate culture guidelines and ambitions. This is where the best defined corporate culture notions can make the difference of a successful policy and impact both internally and externally for the business. With limited buy in and understanding from General employees the front line culture of the firm will fail.

Whilst this is a embryonic process, it needs strong communications vehicles within the business to track it's impact. Businesses must recognise employee adoption is based on awareness and re-iteration of Corporate culture policies.

In any healthy society, the elders (or, if we must, "the top") and the young (or, if we must, "the bottom") have an unspoken agreement to work together to develop the culture.

The elders set boundaries - we might call these rules. They also model certain behaviours - we might call these norms.

The young test boundaries - we might call this innovation. They also question the applicabilty of conventional behaviours when dealing with unconventional (i.e. new) problems - we might call this creativity.

If the young are respectful, they look to the elders for their advice and experience. If the elders are respectful, they provide opportunities for young to lead and change their world.

In the absence of respectfulness - at the "top" or the "bottom" - the cycle is broken and the culture becomes stale or oppressive. But if the unspoken agreement holds, the culture remains vibrant and relevant - constantly refreshing and strengthening itself at the branches and at the roots.

It's primarily bottom-up but influenced by top-down. Culture cannot be manufactured. It has to develop organically.

While executive management can define corporate cultural goals, the working culture will be defined by the employee base. The danger here is that if executive management doesn't lead, coprorate culture is often set by the lowest common denomiator, but if executive decrees are too far outside the sensibilities of the workforce, the result is a war between the executive suite and the watercooler culture. This is never functional. The result in the end is balance and that takes a considerable degree of finesse on the part of executive management.

Corporate culture is often called the personality of the company. It is said, it's "the way we do things around here." All companies own a culture;many do not understand how important it is to the everyday work and how it happens. Our conpany,Confidence Builders, has worked with many entrepreneurial type companies. Our first task is to do a culture survey to find out what people in all departments see day in and day out. That's the first step in beginning to use corporate culture in a more positive way. For example, we worked with a company whose culture was fear-based. Top management treated people with disdain and no respect. The employees behaved accordingly. It was our job to teach the senior management that the way they treated employees caused super high turnover and bottom line revenues. It was really, really difficult to get the senior people to see how harmful their culture was, but after much training and shifting, the seniors came around and changed---not totally, but enough to make some significant changes in the way people were treated. So, I see culture as a driving force that can make or break a company.

This is very interesting question. Culture is people so corporate culture will be what general employees are practicing. However, I believe that management should govern it or set some general guidelines. Management should lead by example and follow these guidelines and then it will tickle down the hierarchy and general employees will follow and practice the same thing. A core group of people in a corporate culture will always have a lasting impression on new comers.

This questions is about the origin of corporate culture. As such it must first come from those who started the company. The initial founders and bootstrapped employees create the seed from which nearly all future culture expands. This is why it is so difficult to fundamentally change companies, and also why is is so hard for some M&A transaction to work as planned on paper.

Later in the companies life people generally build off of the initial seed and the company reflects to decisions and actions of the entire staff. It is important to note that since many decision and actions are dictated, directed or restricted by upper management (through decree or budget), the broad-based staff can often just add "color" or nuances to an otherwise intractable culture.

The great companies find a way for the leaders and everyone else to work in a great synergistic model that allows for cultural evolution without revolution and expansion without dispersion.

I'm more in alignment with Belldon, Corporate culture needs to be lead by the leadership. The mission/values statement on the wall means nothing if the highest leadership is continually demonstrating the opposite in their behavior.

All the great axioms mean nothing to me as an employee if you function counter to them. The issue is defining the very deep core values, not easy, but necessary. Lots of accountability on the executive staff when this is done, because they may have to personally change.

Very well defined core values of 3-5, think lists of 10 are useless as they confuse and are not memorable, that the executive staff lives and breathes will have far great value to the organization than any other leadership they can provide.

In several organizations, key people have left because they could not live the core values. In each the organization functioned at a higher level through out because the executive staff actually lived the core values.

An organization driven on strong and exhibited core values will attract the right people and repel the wrong ones.

With more organizations move to remote work forces, the value of strong core values is even more important. Accountability is driven by core values and the greater the distance between the more important accountable becomes.

Thanks for the question...
HG:)

I concur with Belidon that leaders have a responsibility to shape the culture intentionally. My career path has taken me into turnaround situations in which the organizations were under-performing. The common characteristic was rudderlessness, in which upper management had either made clumsy efforts to instill a corporate culture or had simply abdicated their leadership role. Employees' personal agendas and beliefs were forming the culture organically, with the consequent confusion from the inevitable interpersonal conflicts. Think of a tug-of-war in which the team members are not cooperating to pull the rope together.

As leaders, how can we expect staff to act in alignment with the company's goals and objectives if we do not clearly state them and lead by example? This question is intended to address how staff behave and communicate, but more importantly why. My biggest leadership challenge has been to coach staff to see the "big picture" which is only possible when upper management has clearly communicated its vision and core principles. Culture is integral to this in its effect on interpersonal relations.

I wholeheartedly believe: Nobody can "decide" where a culture needs to be set or who should be "responsible" for creating one. Culture is deeply ingrained in our behavioral model and set by the alpha animal hierarchy. As Andrew pointed out so well the management team sets it "actively or passively". Sorry for the long answer that follows:

Culture creation by dominant people
-------------------------------------------------------
The most dominant people within an organization drive that culture. Obviously in most cases the management team is that dominant group. In several cases however you may find rather less dominant (not to mix up with weak) executives and a rather dominant second level management team - then those actually drive the culture more than the e-team. But guess what, indirectly it is the e-team by virtue of hiring those managers. Leaders drive behavior and teams consciously or sub consciously follow. Or have a hard time fighting in frustration until the resign or leave - with the exception of those actually becoming a leader.

Example
--------------
If the leaders are not cultivating innovation - there is no innovation in the company because innovators will leave sooner or later due to lack of recognition. If leaders are not cultivating a great customer experience, you can hire the best consultants and the best teams, they will leave sooner or later.

Culture Changes
---------------------------
Culture as such changes pretty quickly if the upper management team changes. The best examples are restaurants. A highly frequented and beloved restaurant get sold and within weeks it's a dormant place because the culture changed. A new CEO can turn a company around without he or she being a product expert, bringing new customers, have a stellar marketing idea - but by shifting the culture of a company to something that resonates better to the market.

Creating a culture through resonance
-------------------------------------------------------
As a CEO I have a clear idea what that culture should be. BUT I would never be able to ask people to "build that culture" all I can do is hiring people who have a high level of resonance to that culture. But as our culture is our single biggest asset I do everything humanly possible to hire people that match that culture. Another great example is Zappos - it is a culture company and also their CEO Tony Hsieh focuses more on the company's culture than on it's balance sheet.

Breakpoints in the culture development
----------------------------------------------------------
You cannot "request" people to align themselves with a culture if their believe system tells them otherwise. This is where cultures fail. It isn't that a company "has no culture", "or has a bad culture". There is no bad culture in my mind, only a culture we may not agree with. But there are thousands of companies where the culture is a collection of conflicts where hires are made that are not in line with the original spirit of the company and the hiring process was never designed to take "culture" as one of the key aspects. That is where a culture of a company dilutes to a level that may be considered ignorance - which in itself is a culture ;)

.

This is a great question. And I have worked for several companies that try to portray themselves with an certain culture or need they want their employees follow. It does not work. The employee has to have the idea that they are doing more than just a job. Management sets the mood but the employees are the front line to the culture of the company and what the customers comes in touch with.

Corporate Culture is defined or should be defined in the mission statement when it is established. It is up to management to keep the culture in tack. If the mission statement
says to be courteous and professional at all times and the general employees are rude
and downright disgusting, then management is not doing its job of providing courteous and professional services. It is management responsibility to keep the culture in zinc with what the intention is from the outset. They should be examining it each and every day to ensure that
the corporate culture is adhered to.

The top-down approach is more effective to define or change a corporate culture. Without overt and clear top management buy-in, nothing offered will be believed, nor will it be consistently presented or accepted as either important or gospel. If the culture is not defined by the top eschelon, a wide variety of potentially undesirable and incompatible local versions will evolve.

"Anything of value not controlled by the organization will be controlled by the employees." In the event that management neglects its required leadership role, the result will be anarchy or relatively uncontrolled/undirected chaos where the inmates set the rules.

A company ambiance is almost always set by the owner. The owner hires people with whom he or she feels comfortable. When the company grows to the point that hiring happens without input from the top level of management, it can be destroyed by a hiring manager who chooses poorly, or allows too many points of friction to be created.
If your boss is a mafia hit man, you probably want a lot of stoic, silent but violent people, but you can't expect to change the work climate as an individual in the wrong place. Your sunny outlook is not going to change things ... well, not much, and you certainly don't want them to "whistle while they work."
However, if the corporate CEO is a profit-obsessed, wall street denizen, a cheery bunch of folks in the local branch office can form their own lighter version of the corporate mood, provided the company objectives are being met. But don't expect to create a corporate culture from a grassroots groundswell. It isn't going to happen.

Leadership must be top-down, or it's not leadership at all. Do the sailors run the ship? Companies should establish friendly working environments, but a lax culture promotes inefficiency and laziness. Stress is a part of any job and if an employee can't stand the heat, they shouldn't be in the kitchen.

It's called "going to work" for a reason. A company is not a clubhouse. The main purpose of going to work is not to waste time gossiping with coworkers or checking your Facebook page. Employees are there to work. If management doesn't understand this, then the problem is a lack of leadership.

Culture is set from the leadership, but not without the support of the employees. Furthermore, change has to be supported from the top. Moreover, the leadership has to understand the corporate culture before it can truly begin to make the change happen. It's one thing for leadership to say "we're changing." It's an entirely different ball game to get the entire company on board with the message. I've just finished a book called Transforming Corporate Culture by Lisa Jackson and Gerry Schmidt, two leading change consultants. Their message is clear: understand your corporate culture and then impart change within that framework. They present a vision for concrete steps leaders at all level of an organization can take to actually see change happen. It's amazing when it does. http://www.corporateculturepros.com

There is a saying in my country: "You sleep the way you make your bed", so i think it's upper management's job to establish and lead the corporate culture.

I'd like the think that Corporate Culture is actually set by the Shareholders/Customers and that C-Level Management down through the main workforce are simply there to enforce it and promote it. It's a cycle. You build your Company's brand and name reputation based on things like product quality, history, Customer Satisfaction and profitability (to loosely name a few). But at the root of all of these, how the Customer values each of these categories determines where you steer your business model next.

If there's a general sense of satisfaction or unhappiness from the masses, it's usually captured and filtered back up to the top of the chain. From there, decisions are made to address gaps or call out success in the form of 'Culture Shift' or 'Policy Changes' which in turn are trickled down to the 'worker bees' to be implemented.

Any way you slice it though, the Customer is the one that sets the culture. We; the Worker, just make it happen.

Cheers.

Should the inmates run the asylum? if culture is not a reflection of the values and styles of leadership, it is not likely to be positive, organized, or focused. Not that all leaders develop desirable cultures, which is another issue entirely.

That said, when leadership determines that a cultural shift is strategically desirable, concerted effort is a core requirement for engaging and teaching the organization, at all levels, what is involved in new models of attitude and behavior.