Defining organizational culture

- The culture of an organization is often summed up as its way of doing things. But some people like to say it's not what you do, it's how you do it. It's the telltale behaviors that are characteristic of, even endemic to a certain group. What people do is all about what technology they use, what office building they go to, what product they design, what leader they report to. How they do it is where culture comes in. It's about the behaviors people use to get what they do done. But describing and changing how people do things is a hard one to pin down. And this is why in looking for a definition of culture, you might also hear people talk about things like commonly held values, norms, and assumptions to describe what's underneath the surface, explaining that behavior that you see above ground. But I think there's another way to look at it. You see, for the last 15 years or so, I've been cross-examining anyone who looks remotely up for a chat about culture at work. And yes, I do hear about how they do things. But I hear more about what they experience. You know, what they heard at the last all company meeting, what they saw last week in the account team. More recently, what's been going down in the chat box on Zoom. And when you think about it, this all makes a lot of sense because experience is tangible. We can describe it by talking about what we see, hear, and feel. And if you look into the psychology of human behavior, we know that what we experience has a direct impact on how we do things. And this is why I think experience is such an important part of the study of culture at work. Of course, it isn't the only thing that explains how we do things. As individuals, there are plenty of factors influencing how we behave. We've got internal experiences like emotions to add to the mix, not forgetting our genetic makeup or our personalities, and sometimes the most important factor of all, for me anyway, how we slept last night. But when we're in a group like a team or an organization, the experience we have gives us something common to observe and act upon. It tells us this is how we do things in this group. So talking about culture in terms of what we experience, gives us something tangible we can describe in a language we can all understand. It ensures we focus on what's common to the group without getting distracted by individual personalities or traits. So I still think the way we do things is probably the best definition of culture at work. But if you want to understand and change the culture on your team or your organization, don't ask your people how they do things or even what values and assumptions they're operating on, because you probably won't get a straight answer. Ask them what they experience and focus on changing that to get the outcome you're after.