If you have been following The Grange for any amount of time, you’re aware of our notion that Culture is King. It is our belief that culture is the single most determinative factor in business success.
The Grange has repeated that fundamental principle for almost 20 years at this point, and it seems that most of the HR world has finally caught up. You hear it at conferences all the time now and stressed to everybody from those HR practitioners just entering the field, to those that work at the highest levels.
Ironically, however, the term is often not defined. What is culture? The Grange has noted before that “culture is the sum of all interpersonal interactions within the company.” Is that definition meaningful to you as a business owner or executive?
What is an “interpersonal interaction” and how do you sum many of them? It’s a difficult question that rarely gets asked.
Interpersonal interactions take place every time an employee communicates with another employee, customer, member of the local community, or the family of another employee. Every word, every action, every email, every marketing dollar spent, add up over time.
It’s easy to love some of the phrases that get used over and over in companies. Some of our favorites are “lift your skirt”, “I’ll take a WAG”, “the delta between the two”, “we need to differentiate them”, “FUBAR”, and the ever-popular euphemism of “promoted to customer.”
“Interactions add up over time until employees at all levels begin to believe that they can predict the behavior of others.”
Every time these phrases are used, they add to the culture. It’s difficult to quantify what using the phrase “I’ll take a WAG at it” adds or decreases from the culture but there are some things that clearly influence a culture one way or another. A request for fresh ideas that are ignored by an executive leader only for a senior manager to be recognized two months later at an all-hands meeting for implementing a new way of communicating with customers, doesn’t set an innovative tone.
That situation does create a particular culture, however. It says, “in our culture we say things that sound good in company meetings, but we don’t mean them.” It may also say “only managers or senior leaders can have their suggestions heard or receive credit for new, innovative ideas.”
If an employee makes a suggestion that is never acknowledged, are they likely to make another one? If they do give a second suggestion, if they are ignored again, they are very unlikely to ever make another suggestion to the company no matter how encouraged or incentivized they are.
Interactions add up over time until employees at all levels begin to believe that they can predict the behavior of others. The behavior that they come to expect is culture.
What is the culture in your company and who is shaping it right now?