Corporate Culture : A view

                       Southern Economist,Volume 45(2)2006

An organisation works through its workforce, which comes from different walks of life, having varied culture, social status, educational background, knowledge and experience. Organisational culture plays important role in changing the approach, attitude and thinking process of employees. It is the character of an institution, which indicates ethical values, beliefs that support the objectives of the organisation and theme of its mission. Culture is nothing but a set of cross individual behavioral mechanism. It reflects how individuals and groups in an organisation interact with each other and with people outside the organisation.

What is corporate culture?

Corporate culture reflects both social and behavioural pattern prevalent in the organisation, and the way work force interpret their experience and guide their actions. It is the living philosophy of the institution and projects its reflex system. In fact corporate culture reflects the sum totals of objects, ideas, beliefs, values, assumptions, practices, attitude of people their language pattern and reveals the minds of executives. It is the live wire, which stimulates radical changes in corporate performance and influences the way things are done in the organisation. It is a powerful force at work inside the organisation, which drives action .It gives an insight to the internal climate and characteristics of the institution

The philosophy and culture prevalent in the institution has direct impact on employee’s attitude towards work, peers, subordinates and superiors. There is relationship between the culture prevalent in the organisation and performance of its work force. It has inherent influence on the career aspirations of people, their attitude and approach towards competition, and corporate objectives.

Why Corporate Culture?

Corporate culture is the focal point of inspiration, effective guidance and causes bottom line consequences. It plays key role in shaping and reshaping the organisation. It is the powerful tool that helps employees in attitudinal change, process of thinking and acts as a catalyst in employees’ behaviour modification.

Good corporate culture provides social status and pride to employees, and gives them a sense of identity and belonging to the institution which ultimately results into their assuming greater responsibilities, and enhanced productivity.
Corporate culture that is built on sound ethics and principles has positive impact on the strategic development, productivity and learning. Despite difficult environment employees’ stick to the institution and contribute to its success provided it has positive culture

Leadership and Impact on culture:

Building of corporate culture is the key to the executive effectiveness. Cultural intoxication can produce both positive and negative impact .It depends upon the culture embedded in the organisation philosophy. Hence chief executive has to establish values that subordinates can be expected to embrace.

Positive leadership plays important role in building good culture. It influences subordinates confidence in superiors. Unless people have faith and confidence in their superiors, that they will be supported, taken care, they will be appreciated and rewarded for good work, they will shirk responsibility, and delay or avoid taking decision which will ultimately have an impact on production, services, and market reputation of the institution.

Executives in the organisation have to realise that corporate culture is the instrument, which forges the spirit of collaboration amongst work force and germinates mutual trust and cooperation. It is the natal chart of the organisation and key to excellence .It is the touchstone, which differentiates between two organisations. Depending upon the culture embedded in the organisation philosophy, it can have both positive and negative impact.
Culture has contagion effect. It gets contaminated and deteriorated at a faster rate. A culture may be effective at one time, under a given set of circumstances and ineffective at other time.

Culture and technology:

Due to technological developments, human interface is being replaced by technology. The implementation of technology does indicate the culture of the organisation. The experience one gets while interfacing with technology speaks a lot about the culture. The imagination of the programmer, executive’s maturity level, experience and approach indicates the culture of the institution. An individual experiences on interfacing with the technology. Generally people interfacing with the system do not feel the way the organisation feels and the responses received do not match the expectations. Where ever the system has in built option of manual interface the person attending to the call either has insufficient knowledge or there is no response. In the event, where the person interfacing with system has an option to send e-mail, it is in general observed that the computer-generated response is that “the query is being looked into and the response will be given within 24 hours”. However, when the response as assured is not received it not only results into frustration but speak volumes about the culture of such techno-savvy organisation.

Classification of Culture:

Understanding and interpreting organisational culture is an important activity of supervisory team as it affects strategic development and productivity at all levels. In a larger organisation there can be different culture in different sections across the units which are due to the values and attitudes of the department manager as they can influence the culture in his / her unit down the line.

The behaviour of the members of the senior team, their reactions, what they talk about, their tone and tenor gives an impression not only about their maturity level but also indicates organisation’s strategy, management practices and the culture prevalent in the institution.

Culture is impressionistic. An outsider can easily spot the culture by entering an organisation and observing the approach, attitude of people towards work, executive’s attitude towards employees and their verbal and non verbal communication, comments/observations on internal communication and the way people are dealt and deal.

Culture in an organisation :

Work or Kaam Culture:

The main motto of staff in an organisation having work culture is performance with excellence. They are committed and devoted only to performance. They work with dedication. Staff in such organisation is self-motivated and charged. They derive pleasure from work as It gives them internal satisfaction and a feeling of accomplishment. They accept challenges. People at all levels are result oriented. Every one wants to show results better than the other. There is competitive spirit in the institution and mutual trust and respect at all level in the hierarchy. The whole organisation is interwoven. The attitude and behaviour is helping. Organisations having work culture are performing units

Take it easy or Aaram Culture:

This is just the opposite of the culture mentioned in (1) above. People at all levels in the organisation take things lightly. They are shirkers. There is hardly any seriousness towards work or performance. The attitude towards work is casual. Things take their own time. People in the organisation pretend to be busy without work. They work only up to the subsistence level so that no one may point out at him or her. They neither refuse assignments nor perform. The survival of the organisation depends on the performance of a few dedicated and committed workers. The common excuses for delaying, avoiding work is “Come tomorrow”,” Boss is out or busy” etc..

Interfering Culture:

In an organisation, which is predominated by interfering culture, superiors interfere at each and every stage of activities. The interference is not for ensuring the quality of work but to demonstrate the authority and power vested in them. Performers are not given independence to work. Though the people work at the optimum level, the output is generally delayed. Interference at each stage kills the zeal of dedicated workers and they get demotivated. Other than giving instructions at every stage, superiors neither guide nor contribute.

Superiors fail to realise that their attitude reflects lack of confidence in their own capabilities and not in the ability of the subordinates. Workers have low esteem for their superiors. With the passage of time performers stop taking initiative and dedicated workers adopt casual approach towards work. To judge the capabilities of superiors they start consulting them at every stage. In the process output is delayed and quality suffers.

Initial Culture:

Those superiors who follow the above culture do not attended papers unless initialed by all concerned. Before attending to any paper they ensures that the subordinates have initialed the paper put-up to them. Superiors insist Initials even on non-important routine issues and return papers only for want of initials by subordinates. The papers are tossed in the office between people for initials. This results in to delay.
Many a time it is observed that a four line non-important letter bears over half a dozen initials. Superiors do not delegate authority to subordinates to sign even the routine standard acknowledgements or correspondence just to show their power and authority. The staff develops agitated feeling towards superior. The purpose is not to keep subordinates apprised with the developments but to fix him if some ting goes wrong at a later stage.

Cabin Culture:

Superiors following cabin culture confine to their cabin. They do not come out to discuss the issues, problems with the subordinates. Those having glasses in their cabins for transparency, go on calling subordinates even for irrelevant, petty issues / matters for giving an impression that they are busy in the work. Superiors desire to be surrounded by the subordinates, as it gives them feeling of power and prestige. Superiors do not realise that this attitude on their part disturbs the entire work process. They do not realise that cabin is nothing but a sort of quarantine so that their germs of inefficiency are not passed on the working force.

Gossip Culture:

Under this culture much of the productive time in the organisation is wasted on unproductive issues. People take more interest in office politics rather than on work. Bosses discuss politics over intercom or over phone just to give an impression that they are busy in office work. Every one in the institution takes interest in grapevine culture.

Inquisitive Culture:

In this culture employees take keen interest in finding out more and more about the policies of the institution, personal and family life of the bosses, their official engagements, discussions or instructions given during the meetings, issues discussed in the board etc. This is done to impress peers. Lot of time, energy and office facilities are wasted in acquiring the irrelevant information that too at the cost of productive time. Even those in the higher echelon play this game and this precedes performance. Such type of culture is prevalent in non-transparent organisation.

Projecting Culture:

In this culture people project their performance out of proportion. They project themselves to be the only performer in the organisation. Positive projection is done for self-upliftment and negative for those who perform with excellence and are competitors. Projection is done at the cost of others. Projectionists form a cartel. The members of the cartel project one other and people at the top believe unreal things to be real and bestow reward. It is a planned manner of throwing dust in the eyes of those who matter. The impression once formed remains ever as courtiers surrounding the superiors have their own cartel.

Discuss Culture:

This culture indicates lack of self-confidence of superiors. They hesitate in taking decisions. The only thing they religiously do is to put remarks "Please Discuss” on the issues / papers referred to them by subordinates. This remark is invariably put on all the papers whether relevant or irrelevant or even not related to the office or person concerned .It is generally done to know the views of subordinates and instructions are given thereafter without any contribution from superior’s side. Many a times it gives an impression that the superior either has no idea of his own or does not want to exert his mental faculties since he craves for the idea from others. Generally discussions with subordinates are not to listen to their views but to force the views of supervisor.

Marking Culture:

It is a common culture prevailing particularly in multi layer public organisations. Superiors promptly dispose papers received by them by marking them to the subordinates and thereafter silently forget all about it. No instructions are given. It is only after getting reminders, that superiors wake up and action is initiated. Ultimately, the subordinate is blamed for the delay or for not attending to the papers. Superiors do not have track of pending matters in the departments handled / supervised by them. The issue is deemed to have been closed in the absence of reminders.

Sabotaging Culture:

In this form a culture every one in the organisation looks for an opportunity to sabotage others for their own progress, recognition and getting rewarded. People are jealous of the achievements and progress of peers and try to poison the ears of those who matter. The philosophy behind is that competitors should not progress. Apparently competitors appear to be close to each other but in fact they are after the blood of each other. The entire energy is wasted in planning to malign competitor. People carry tales and false stories about others and derive sadistic pleasure when they find competitors in hot water. This culture props up at the time of promotional or elevation exercises. Good performance of competitors is torpedoed in concealed manner. Environment of mistrust, disrespects, prevails in the institution. Sabotaging is done through lobbying.

Ignorance Culture:

To avoid shouldering additional responsibilities, people in the organisation pretend to be unaware. Their standard reply is " I am not aware" or “ I think such and such person will be aware” or “I will find out and let you know”. It is not the subordinates, even those who are at the helm of affairs adopt the attitude of ignorance for shirking work.

Non Instructive Culture:

Under this culture superiors do not give any guidance, directions to the staff. Staff is asked to do things on their own. Superiors mark papers to the subordinate with the remark "Please do the needful”. Though superiors take the pretext of grooming the subordinate for shouldering higher position, in fact they disguise their incompetence under this cover. Giving clear-cut direction enhances their position in the eyes of subordinates as they feel superiors to be capable.

Monitoring and Instructing Culture:

Instead of directing, guiding, understanding the ground realities and solving the problems faced at execution level, executive and his team prefers to monitor the performance. They talk only about performance, achievement of targets, goals and results. Their approach of slave driving does not yield results. Operating units get verbal thrashing for non-performance. Superiors behave like authoritarian and do not listen even to the genuine problems. They give only instructions. Subordinates start taking instructions lightly. They evaluate pros and cons of not coming up to the expectations. They get alienated and work suffers. In the long run they become non-performers. Expecting the performance without support leads to frustration and demotivation.

No Culture:

When executives in an organisation adopt different standards for different people in the similar situation with intentions to bestow favour to a selected few close to them it indicates absence of culture. People loose faith in the organisation, which ultimately results into the downfall of the institution. People start alienating and look for satisfaction outside the work place.

Yes Boss Culture:

Under this culture executives are surrounded by yes men. These persons endorse the views of the executives irrespective of the fact whether it is right or wrong. They do so either under coercion or fear of repulsion or for getting favours. The executive does not get the right view of the affairs prevailing in the organisation and takes decisions, decides policies, which may be detrimental to the institution resulting into discontentment, dissatisfaction and deterioration in the performance of the institution. The yes-boss culture inflates the ego of superiors and they start living in fool’s paradise

Conclusion:

If we want to have an excellently managed well-performed organisation, naturally we have to look towards the work place and the work force. Motivated workforce can do miracles. They are self-starters, and can bring success to the organisation and to the top management. Therefore, it is must to build a corporate culture on sound ethics and principles. An executive should be vigilant in understanding the type of culture being followed at different levels in the organisation. He has to tune more eyes and ears to seeing what really is going on in the institution.

If the executive observes that any culture other than the work culture is prevalent in the organisational landscape, he should understand that the institution is marching towards doom. He has therefore to take corrective measures without loss of time and become transparent. He should understand that the work force imitates the style of superior and his style is the basis of culture of the organisation.

Positive and helpful culture helps in motivating staff and prevents them from becoming dissatisfied. If the organisational climate does not satisfy the needs of staff, then they would be dissatisfied and would become less inclined to work towards the organisational goals.