Organizational culture: Effortless to create but slippery to influence
The instant two or more humans interact, culture is formed. In the time it takes to buy a latte, you have formed a culture between you and the barista behind the counter. I’ll call that automatic culture. Instant, involuntary, (literally) human nature.
If norms and expectations are met, that short interaction has a chance to become a good vibe (“hey, that barista was cool — hope I get him again next time.”)
Culture is like a neural network that lights up any time two or more humans interact. The result is how each person feels about themselves and the others involved after the interaction. That cultural memory gets carried forward and builds momentum so that if two or more people interact often (like in families, social circles, communities, churches, companies), that automatic culture eventually forms a short-hand set of expectations and identity…“people like us do things like this.”
Welcome to the tribe.
In the case of organizations, ‘tribe and vibe’ is what most CEOs, university presidents, political leaders, pastors generally refer to as simply “culture.” Because most leaders want to be able to influence this tribal identity, let’s call this intentional culture.
Whatever type, all culture is made of the exact same human to human call and response. (“I like you and you seem to like me.” “That person knows a lot, I respect them.” “I feel judged, I don’t feel safe.”)
But shaping culture for a group of people? That’s tricky. Really tricky.
Guiding organizational culture can be like trying to guide a spooked octopus… nothing goes the way you expect.
Turns out, it is extremely easy to impact company culture but extremely difficult to impact company culture effectively.
Because business leaders are humans with (understandably) varying degrees of aptitude and patience for a high-stakes game of Squishy and Unpredictable, many rely on a firm set of KPIs to guide company culture activities (think of recent NPS scores on employee satisfaction or last quarter’s employee retention numbers as a guidepost). These measures are great to measure current sentiment but lagging indicators are not a tool for leading to tomorrow.
In my experience, organizational culture is best respected as the elusive muse it is. The muse that heartily mocks “culture workshops” and employee morale boosting programs and carrot-and-stick (or less nice) forms of employee coercion.
There are no shortcuts.
Impactful organizational culture comes from real humans doing humble work with extreme competence. Real leadership.
Real leadership is the kind of leadership that happens as a real, fallible human being does work that they genuinely believe in with a deep and unshakable care for the people around them. Real leadership is the kind of leadership that takes stock of their mistakes, actively solicits feedback from those around them and takes it to heart (especially when it’s hard to hear). Real leadership is the kind of leadership based in exceptional competence for the tasks in their hands while still remaining humble and available to others and willing to share what they know.
If you’ve ever been around a real leader like this, you remember it. It changes you.
Everyone wants to work with them. People respect them. People tell stories about them. They are not always pleasant to be around (sunny disposition and deep belief in the work they do does not always go hand in hand— and they are deeply human, remember?). Title doesn’t matter, though often they have high level titles because of the above. Most importantly, no one needs to tell you to learn from these people. You just do. And the muse of organizational culture lives and thrives in their words and actions, accordingly. Real influence.
I’ve heard this echoed as ‘don’t work for a great company, work for a great boss.’
Because the world needs more of us to find our true and unique leadership potential and become humble 10x-ers (lord, do we need more humble and genuine 10x-ers!), I’m glad to say that much of this can be learned. It ain’t easy. But it can be learned if you want to.
How?
The best way to learn how to be your best leadership self is from being around a real leader. It changes you.
Or, you can get a coach. Or both.
As Christian Idiodi said recently, Usain Bolt is the fastest man in the world. He has a coach.
The coach is not a fast runner. (That is not their job.)
Usain Bolt’s job is to run.
The coach’s job is to help Bolt run faster than anyone else.
