One of the biggest misunderstandings I see is that a great organizational culture is the result of getting everyone together, having parties and rewarding employees. People think of things like employee of the month and social gatherings as great contributors to organizational culture.
The problem with this attitude or idea about culture is that people aren’t addressing the real issues present in their organization; they don’t understand the full scope of their own organizational culture and how it factors into those issues.
When companies try to improve their culture, they often start implementing these types of things first, usually with little success. They misunderstand that these are components of an organizational culture, but by themselves, they are not culture. Culture is the entire ecosystem of an organization.
When we look at our organizations as biological entities, it can enable us to see the bigger picture. While most successful organizations run on systems, many leaders have a blind spot about the largest system they have: The human system.
The Building Blocks Of A Thriving Ecosystem
The human system within an organization is a major benefactor of the ecosystem. The ecosystem has three main building blocks: Intent, environment and architecture. The overall intent is what everybody in the organization is moving toward fulfilling. A strong intent unites people in service of achieving it and drives the direction of the company.
The architecture gives people the framework for the time and repetition needed to master the learnings so they can be part of an environment that thrives. An organization’s architecture includes things like how they have meetings, how often they have meetings, the kinds of meetings they have, how they design their strategy, how they include people in the strategy design, and how they execute the strategy.
The environment is how things get done between people. How do they treat and interact with each other? Is everyone encouraged to share their greatest fears, concerns, and ideas and bring their highest and best self so that the business strategy gets fulfilled with more flow, ease, and velocity? Are teamwork and collaboration encouraged and effective? The energy, interactions, communication, workflow, and cooperation between every person within the organization are all a part of the environment.
When these building blocks are integrated, the result is the catalyzation of intrinsic motivation and exceptional teamwork inside the human system. When this happens, unrivaled innovation is a foregone conclusion.
A Holistic View Of Organizational Participants
Beyond just interactions between members of the organization, every person who engages with and is a part of the organization is also a part of the ecosystem. This includes employees, customers, leaders, managers, strategic partners and vendors.
Another part of the ecosystem is the context through which the human system views the industry that the organization is a part of. This context often has a large effect on the behavior and expectations within the company.
For example, there are some industry norms that are all about toughness and competition where people run over others to get things done. There are also some industries where things are analyzed to the point of nausea. The first example often results in excess levels of frustration, friction and stress while the second often means that things don’t get done as fast as they should or need to.
Everything that’s input into the ecosystem ends up as an output of the system. If people are not achieving the results (output) they want to as an organization, then there is an input that is not working. There’s a problem within the ecosystem that is affecting everyone because everything is connected and integrated within this system.
An issue with a vendor, employee, leader or customer could be causing the problem. There could also be a bigger overall issue with the environment, architecture, or intent. Even the smallest of problems can sometimes cause large ripple effects within the ecosystem. Every single input, no matter the size, has an impact on the entire ecosystem.
Leadership Styles And Their Lasting Influence
Even previous leaders of the organization have a tremendous imprint on the ecosystem. Their way of doing things may still be the predominant way of doing things at the organization—even if they are no longer there.
There are always residual positive and negative effects on the ecosystem. This is why it is so important to continuously cultivate your ecosystem. Just like human behavior, ecosystem behavior lives long past any leader.
For example, take a leader who is decisive, results-driven and gets things done. He makes things happen. He takes on every project or challenge with a vengeance. When roadblocks occur, he knocks them down with little regard for the aftermath of his actions when it comes to people or the overall long-term workability of the solution.
Unfortunately for this leader and those he works with, his ultimate pursuit of results leaves a wake of disregarded processes, dead emotions and mistrust. Many people who work for him feel like they can't do anything right to make him happy. Quite often, they avoid talking to him in the early stages of identifying a problem because they believe he will blame them for the problem.
A leader like this will often leave members of the organization frustrated, competing and/or fearful long after he’s stopped working there. Other members will have started behaving the way this leader did, and thus, the cycle perpetuates.
Improving The Ecosystem
This is just one example. Every leader has a different leadership style and their impact is different (in both positive and negative ways). This happens in every company.
These ways of being fail to adjust to changing times. What was acceptable or encouraged in the workplace 30 years ago may be frowned upon or even illegal today, making it that much more important to understand the entire biology of your organizational culture and improve the ecosystem as a whole rather than just in small parts.
P.S. Read Magi's original publication of this article on Forbes
P.P.S. Learn more about healthy, intentional, high-performance organizational culture by subscribing to Magi's Youtube Channel. She posts new content all the time!