Successful teams thrive on a positive team culture. To establish a positive culture, companies have to instill a robust set of beliefs and values that the staff will embody to perform tasks with the company’s best interest in mind. This shared sense of value helps teams perform better to meet management expectations and creates a strong company culture. Learning why organizational culture is essential and how to instill it in your organization leads to better performance, engaged employees, and more.
What is organizational culture, and why is it important?
By definition, organizational culture is the values, beliefs, assumptions, and ways of interaction that represent an organization’s environment. When employees adopt these behaviors, their work and performance align with the company’s heart. Positive organizational cultures can increase employee retention, high performance, quality communication, and happy customers. However, when organizational culture is ineffective or toxic, it leads to high employee turnover, disorderly employees, dissatisfied clients, and decreased sales. The reason why organizational culture is influential is that it is the backbone of all successful companies.
What are the different types of organizational culture?
Organizational cultures vary from business to business. Some companies thrive on a family-like culture with a shared sense of values, beliefs, motivation, and ideals. Many organizations are beginning to adopt the family-like approach because it resonates with employees. Other organizations may run more like a wolf pack, where the focus is on power and authoritarianism. These cultures tend to run on fear-based emotions, resulting in high turnover for employees who cannot handle these environments. Some companies have a culture that runs like a machine where competitiveness is encouraged and innovation thrives.
Establishing a company culture that aligns with your company’s vision and mission will ensure that your company thrives. Ensure that your culture is not toxic or off-putting, as this can turn employees and clients away.
What are some examples of organizational culture?
Organizational culture includes effective leadership behaviors, specific communication styles, corporate celebrations, and shared values and beliefs. For instance, consider how working at Disneyworld has been labeled “The Happiest Place to Work on Earth.” Disney instilled an organizational culture that was noticed worldwide for the company to earn that title. Another example of organizational culture is a company that advertises they want employees who are “hungry, driven, and adapt to change.” By recruiting talent that shares the same values as those who work in the organization, a shared sense of culture is embodied in the organization.
How can your business establish a remarkable, efficient organizational culture?
As organizations continue to evolve, leaders must encourage and prepare their teams to adapt and transform the way they work faster. To do so, you need a culture of team agility to achieve faster results with the company’s values and beliefs in mind. To incorporate an efficient organizational culture, consider what values and beliefs are intrinsic to your company. What kind of environment do you want to create in your organization (laidback, serious, or a mix of both)? Communicate your values and beliefs to future hires to ensure they’ll fit an excellent organizational culture. Teams that share similar values and beliefs tend to meet expectations and outperform teams that don’t share similar attributes.
Today, companies have to evolve and adapt to consumer demands. Organizational culture must ensure your teams can work together effortlessly to adapt to any change.
