Do you understand what your company’s organizational culture is? It refers to the company’s expectations, philosophies, and values. If you feel your business has lost its vision, it may be because you need to “reorganize.” Learning the pillars of organizational culture will help you do that.
Assess Your Current Culture
Before you can reorganize your company culture, you need to assess its current state. Which principles and values work for your business? Which ones are no longer serving your customers and your bottom line? Chances are your culture isn’t all bad but isn’t all good, either, so you must decide what to keep and what to change up.
Change Behavior to Change Mindsets
People mistakenly think that changing your mindset will lead to changed behaviors. The reality is that it’s hard to change your mindset when you’re doing things the same way you always have. While communicating what you expect from your company’s culture is important, actions speak louder than words, especially when it comes to proving integrity and excellence. Consider allowing your employees to make more decisions on their own, making it easier for departments to collaborate, or implementing an open-door policy for your employees to get the ball rolling.
Know the Difference Between Leadership and Authority
Authority is not the same thing as leadership. Someone can be a department head, for example, but if he or she doesn’t exhibit true leadership skills, employees won’t trust him or her, and work won’t be as efficient. Leadership is extremely important for effective organizational culture. Analyze how your department heads interact with employees, allow employees to fill out anonymous surveys, and analyze overall performance to determine if you need to bring in people with better leadership skills.
Discuss How Behavior Impacts Business Objective
You can have brainstorming meetings to discuss your company’s values and motivations every day, but without discussing how behavior links to your business objectives, you won’t accomplish much. Even when your employees hear what you’re saying, they may not know how to implement the changes they need to. Help them along by providing defined examples of how changed behavior changed company cultures and therefore improved employee satisfaction and the company’s bottom line. When possible, use your own business as an example and reward your employees for work well done.
No matter how much work you put in at one time, remember that organizational culture is an evolving door. What works now may not work two years down the line, so remember to spend time actively managing your expectations of your company’s performance, your employees, and yourself. Make changes when necessary to further ensure your business is productive, lucrative, and positively impacting the community.