What if you took a position at company only to realize later that everything about it felt wrong? Suppose you accepted an invitation to join a club and then found your values didn't exactly mesh with the other members? Have you ever walked into a business and thought, if it were your outfit, you'd do things differently?
Every organization, public or private, small or large, has an organizational culture. A formal description interprets it as "The underlying values, beliefs and principles that serve as a foundation for the organization's management system, as well as the set of management practices and behaviors that both exemplify and reinforce those principles". My favorite, and likely the simplest definition I could find, is this: "It's the way we do things around here".
Organizational culture is a powerful phenomenon. Why? Because it can literally make or break a company, deciding the difference between its success and failure. It's also why business management experts have studied it for years and written volumes about the subject. So much so in fact, there are many colleges and universities offering degrees in Organizational Management alone. It then becomes clear why changing or improving it would become so relevant.
In order to change something the problems and its root causes need to be identified.
However, the business of improving organizational structure may not be as simple as identifying its cause issues, but it can be done. In some extreme instances it's a matter of replacing an entire staff. A negative mindset may have, over the course of time, become second nature to a group. Decision makers may then reach the conclusion that it would be easier to replace a staff rather than attempting to encourage a positive attitude in the workplace.
In my early management days, a good mentor once told me to never forget that a fish stinks from the head down. It seemed a rather crude way to put it, but he was trying to teach me a lesson. It would be my leadership style, my attitude and my management skills that would contribute to the success or failure of my department. It was a lesson I never forgot and have since tried to share with others.
On a much larger scale, it's not unusual to hear of great turnaround stories in the corporate arena. CEO's and other key executives are replaced regularly to influence positives changes in an organization. Those problems can be identified as anything from sagging morale to sagging profits. The leaders of many Fortune 500 companies are held directly accountable by stockholders who have a direct interest in the flourishing culture of a company.
Cultural improvements can take shape in many forms. It can involve revising salary structures, improving working conditions or adding desirable employee benefits. It may also involve something as simple as rewriting a mission statement or as complex as relocating an entire division to a more attractive location. An employee or club member might propose a suggestion box which could be the spark needed to give everyone a voice.
The bottom line is that organizational culture can always be changed for the better, even it means starting from ground zero. The ability to identify problems and the willingness and ability to make changes in an organization are the larger factors in doing so.
Sources:
www.southernlibrarianship.icaap.org
Taylor Cox, Cultural Diversity in Organizations: Theory, Research & Practice
