Culture In A Corporate Context
What do you think about when you hear “company culture?” For me it evokes memories of platitudes written on the wall of a sterile corporate headquarters, maybe in splashy font or in some street-art derivative mural. In the best cases it was aspirational and in the worst cases it was “corporate theater” that no one cared about.
So many companies seemed so disingenuous about what they stood for, that the extension of those values into the culture of the place seemed equally unbelievable. From Pharmaceutical companies who talk about “helping people” only to gouge drug prices to aerospace companies that tout safety only to have hundreds of employees come forward with stories to the contrary, this corporate dishonesty left me highly skeptical of what “culture” could even mean in the context of a business.
I suspect my experience in this realm is not particularly unique. Beyond the colloquial identification of “toxic” workplaces, throughout my career I have found it difficult to identify how a corporate culture, or at least a stated corporate culture, pragmatically touches the day-to-day life of the employees or influences the outcomes of a company.
That’s where I want to spend some time today. Excluding the corporate drivel, what actually defines a company’s culture, are there specific cultures (or elements of cultures) that lend themselves well to corporate environments, and how does one influence “culture.”
Culture In Context
So what is culture in a corporate context? I would argue that corporate culture (or even a team’s culture) is the amalgamation of how employees of a company make decisions, the standards and ideals they hold, and how they interact with each other and the outside world. Regardless of what any document or handbook says, how employees actually behave in completing their work dictates the culture of a company. This is particularly obvious as you think through scenarios like toxic workplaces or companies with clear ethical issues–they definitely don’t have a document that espouses those outcomes as goals, but they exist nonetheless.
I want to provide some practical examples that can add color to the definition I am choosing for culture. We will discuss these examples in more detail in later posts, but for now focus on how a well-defined “culture” might play a role in guiding Bill and Linda.
Decision Making
Bill and Linda are working on a new design for an elevator cable. This cable is critical for the safety of the elevator. Bill thinks the elevator cable should be 3cm in diameter, which provides two-times the load capacity required for this elevator. Linda thinks the elevator cable should be 4cm in diameter, providing three-times the load capacity, which is safer but costs 33% more to manufacture.
Bill and Linda are working on an algorithm which can detect lung cancer on an X-ray. They currently have an algorithm which is 99.7% accurate after working on the project for six months. Linda thinks they should take the algorithm to market as its accuracy is already so high. Bill thinks they should spend another 1 month to get the accuracy to 99.9%.
Linda has been Bill’s manager for 3 years. Over that time frame Bill has always been on time to work, works well with his team mates, and performs on par for his role. He has not had any compensation increases over the past 3 years. Susan also reports to Linda, in the same role as Bill, but joined 1 year ago. Susan is also a good employee and a hard worker, often working nights and weekends. She delivers 1.5x the amount of work that Bill does. Linda has a budget of $10k for compensation increases this cycle.
Standards and Ideals
Bill and Linda are working on a presentation for a client. Bill sends his slides to Linda so that she can add them to the final presentation before sending the presentation to the client. Linda notices and alerts Bill to some small formatting issues with his slides. Bill responds “The client won’t notice and its a waste of time to agonize over such tiny things. We have to move quickly.” Linda takes 30 minutes to fix the small issues before sending the presentation to the client.
Bill and Linda are headed to a client location to discuss some recent service issues that the client has been experiencing. Bill arrives in business casual attire and Linda arrives in casual athletic wear. Linda sees what Bill is wearing and comments “I’ve known this client for years, they won’t care what we’re wearing.”
Bill is working on a financial forecast for next quarter which Linda needs for an important budgeting exercise. Bill has been doing this calculation for several years and there has never been any issue identified. While very familiar with these types of calculations at other organizations, Linda is new to the company and asks to see Bill’s excel file so that she can understand how his number is generated. The excel file that Bill sends is disorganized, poorly labeled, and difficult for Linda to follow.
Social Contracts
Bill and Linda report to different managers. Linda is frustrated that Bill repeatedly misses deliverable deadlines that affect her job and mentions the issue to her manager during a regular one-on-one. Bill comes to Linda the next day saying, “Hey, my boss called me into her office this morning–I’m sorry about missing the deliverable deadlines, I’ve had a lot on my plate the last couple months. I kind of got chewed out by my boss, so next time could you come to me first if there is an issue between us?”
Linda is working on a project which is supposed to be completed by Monday so that Bill can present the results to a client on Monday. It’s 5:30pm on Friday and Linda has at least another 6 hours of work to finish the project. She calls Bill to let him know. Bill says “You told me yesterday you would have it finished in time and I just confirmed the meeting with the client. Can’t you finish it over the weekend?”
Linda responds “Yes, I know, I’m sorry. We had a water leak this morning at my house so I didn’t have the time I was expecting today. I am supposed to drop my daughter off at college this weekend but I can let my husband do that so I can finish this project for you.”
Linda is chatting with Bill over lunch and mentions “Max is so difficult to work with. He is constantly criticizing my ideas and poking holes in my project plans.” Bill responds “Oh really? I really like working with Max. He can be a little coarse, but I feel like his questions and criticism really help me get to the best answer.”
Bill is working on a presentation for Claire, the CEO, that is occurring in a couple weeks. Linda is new to the company and will be presenting her ideas for a new client strategy. During a walkthrough of the presentation Bill thinks to himself that Linda’s section doesn’t show enough data to support her conclusions, something Bill knows Claire, the CEO, is passionate about. Linda is an expert in her field, a field which Bill knows very little about, so Bill decides to stay quiet. At the meeting, Claire ultimately declines to pursue Linda’s new client strategy. After the meeting Bill tells Linda, “I was a little worried that there wasn’t enough data in the presentation for Claire–she’s super data focused and shoots down anything that doesn’t have data to back it up.” Linda responds “I wish you would have told me! I have tons of data I could have put in the presentation!”
As you read through the above scenarios, you can see how culture or shared values can play a pivotal role in how the scenarios may be resolved. It is through this lens that I believe we can change the way in which we think about culture at a company: it is a tool by which leaders can influence decision making, processes, and work relationships to reflect what they believe to be most effective for their company. Furthermore, culture is the room even when the leaders are not, which means a healthy culture can carry the ideals of the leaders, at least in theory, in an infinitely scalable manner.
Given this potential for enormous impact, how do we build an effective company culture? Before we can build or influence, we need to understand how a “culture” is formed within a company.
