Leadership. Culture.
Lately, I joined the executive excellence program by Hoffman-Koffman( I met the fantastic Fred Kofman). The notion of defining one’s work captured me. When you ask someone what his job is, you will usually get a title and a short description. But, people's real job is to make their company win, meaning that they have to sub-optimize their own goals to optimize the whole system. The notion of local optimum interfering in the global optimum is something I learned as a math class student. The analogy to the healthy cultural habits of an organization is gratifying.
Think about it; sometimes you need to not excel in your job to make your whole company win. It's a complex concept to grasp, as most companies measure different divisions by local optimizations. Sales are measured by the number of done deals (I was once that R&D leader tasked to explain to a customer that although the project sold was in PHP, we don’t have that capability…). Customer success is measured by renewing customers. Marketing is measured by brand awareness and leads, and so on. These are just examples of the way various divisions get different goals. In the end, each contributor and manager has his goals and measurements driven by the management. So why should we care about the whole company winning above our own OKR’s and KPI’s? — Well, here comes the concept of culture.
“One thing is guaranteed: A culture will form in an organization, a department, and a workgroup. The question is whether the culture that forms is one that helps or hinders the organization’s ability to execute its strategic objectives. Organizational culture is too important to leave to chance; organizations must use their culture to fully execute their strategy and inspire innovation. It is a leader’s primary role to develop and maintain an effective culture.” Chatman and Cha*
Culture is the key to execution. Culture is the reason people act as they do in the work environment. Will they stop to think if their efforts are for themselves or the whole organization's benefit? Will they feel safe to innovate, to try and fail? Will they feel ashamed and try to hide their mistake? Will they feel authentic and bring their whole selves to their work environment? Will they feel stressed and treat the work as a paycheck only — exchanging their time for money or being inspired and feeling meaning in their efforts. So much stands on the organization's culture!
First, let’s define it:
“Culture is the system of shared beliefs (what is true), shared values (what is important) and shared norms (what is right) that orient members about the way things get done in their organization, what expectations they need to fulfill to fit in, and what they can expect –and demand — from others. “— Fred Kofman
Second, let's think about the way we can change and improve our organization's culture. Although a significant driver for me to be an entrepreneur (one failed attempt under my belt) is to create an organization with a healthy culture and inspire the employees and customers to gain meaning , I also want to bring this spirit to my workplace. I think that each one of us can be the change we want to see. Starting by taking actual ownership over our tasks, but also the whole organization's success. I don’t have all the answers yet, as this is a journey that I'm embarking on. There are companies out there with a shitty culture that succeed business-wise, and it's hard to argue the importance of meaning and to see the people before the business value.
I can only say that I will stay true to these values wherever I am.
