Anatomy of Organizational Culture

by | Apr 21, 2025 | Employer | 0 comments

Individuals have personalities. Groups have Culture. Culture is the collective personality of a group of individuals. Without personality every person is just the same…. an assortment of organs, activities and soulless existence with no remarkable differences. It is personality that differentiates us from one another and gives us a unique identity. Similarly an organization is just an assortment of furniture, transactions and a collection of people without a distinct identity in the absence of a collective personality i.e. Culture. Why is it important for an organization to have a personality? Several reasons. One of the reasons is that Personality renders a human aspect to the organization which brings life to the interactions and relationships between the associates and the organization itself. Let’s now dive a little deeper.

No Culture. Possible? – Assume we choose not to have any specific culture in our organization. What are we likely to get as a result? In all of history, have we ever heard of a group without a distinct culture? No. Culture still settles in.

If we are not mindful of culture it would be left to chance. Culture and Sub-cultures would creep into each sub-group depending on the leadership styles of the formal or informal leaders in each of these sub-groups. And it is likely that these fragmented group cultures would clash with each other often resulting in office politics and frustrations for the members of the groups. Cultures so formed randomly tend to be very volatile and dissolve as soon as the leader changes, giving way to new culture based on the new leader’s style.

Culture shapes Behavior – If you are a believer that Management is a lot about shaping the behavior of your people and driving results through building synergy, culture is what needs to be focused upon. A great culture can cause behavior to move from mediocrity to virtuosity. The virtues that are identified as distinctive cultural elements and promoted by the Leaders are the ones that would be practiced by the workforce. It clarifies to associates which behaviors are valued and which are condemned.

In the modern globalized world where people from diverse ethnic backgrounds work together, Organizational Culture supersedes the ethnicity related cultural differences and even blunts out office politics to a great extent. This leads to associates getting along with each other with ease and pulling in one direction. In essence, Culture matters! And in a big way!! This explains why associates in companies with strong culture outperform their peers in other companies by about 20%.

Intensity of Culture – Mild to Strong. Intensity of Culture can be defined as the degree of consistency with which members of the group exhibit behavioral traits that are distinctive of that group’s culture. High consistency with respect to a certain trait indicates high intensity and as we move towards a lower consistency on the scale, we gradually move towards mild cultures and then gradually to non-existence of that behavioral trait at a cultural level.

Mild cultures tend to get dissolved over a period of time and lose their cultural identity. This happens because conformity to cultural norms or the lack of it tends to be inconsequential for members of the group in low-intensity cultures. Organizations need to build enough intensity to create any impact of culture on results. Success through culture management is only possible when the intensity is high enough to impact the day to day thinking and behavior of group members.

What kind of culture suits your organization? Purpose & Values: Ensure everyone working for the organization is aligned to the purpose. Without knowing or believing or living the purpose for which the organization exists, people are never going to excel at creating products/services that serve the purpose for which the organization exists. It is of paramount importance to ensure that the culture of the organization is aligned to the purpose for which it exists.

Competitive Edge: The kind of culture that fits your organization depends on the kind of business you have and the vision of the organization. It is important to identify the traits that would give a competitive edge. For instance, if you build a business which has innovation as your competitive edge, it would be beneficial to have a culture which fosters innovation. If unmatchable customer service is what the organization aspires to build as competitive edge to win over rival companies, you would like to build a culture which boosts customer service excellence as the paramount value.

How to build culture?

Dream and articulate your dream. First have a vision of how the ideal culture would look like for your kind of business. Have a very vivid vision. Use the Purpose & Values framework and competitive edge of your business as flag-posts in building the vision. Envision how the framework translates into expected behaviors in real life situations. Prioritize and synchronize. It would be a great idea to invite contributions and thoughts from various sections of your employees to straight away start engaging them in the process of building a fabulous culture.

Communicate – No amount of communication is too much when it comes to communication about Culture. Studies indicate that at least 22 percent of employees do not know core values or do not understand them. At least 25 percent of employees do not know their company’s mission. This shows why communication is so very important. You can create a cult culture by being as creative and clear as possible while communicating. Don’t just communicate what is expected out of them. Communicate what it would look like to possess the prized culture that you aspire to build. Communication process regarding Culture never ends. Reinforcement of communication has to be done at regular intervals to keep the cultural traits prevalent.

Set Example – senior leaders in the organization need to first practice before preaching when it comes to setting up a great culture. Spot opportunities for yourself to demonstrate the behaviors you expect from your people. Do it time and again.

Reward – Idolize great behaviors. Celebrate and publicize any instances/individuals who have exemplified commitment to the culture you aspire to build. Remember Ivan Pavlov’s experiment? You get more of what you reward more. Simultaneously ensure to condemn any behaviors that work against your culture, even if such behaviors get you short term gains. Remember, no great culture happens without some sacrifices.

Finally, remember to create a high intensity culture that makes a difference. Half-measures do not lead to any results. The true promise of a culture, argues influential venture capitalist Ben Horowitz, is to “be provocative enough to change what people do every day.”

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