Is it worth to invest in a consistent organizational culture or it is just a new corpo-fad?

6 min readJan 9, 2020

What we gain by having the consistent organizational culture and what we lose if nobody takes care of it. How this impacts our employees.

Organizational culture has recently become a very fashionable topic. More and more companies define their values and expect that their employees will bring them to life by presenting them in day in and day out duties. The values are posted on the walls, in email footers, hashtags, and the staff can be rewarded for the best value representation across the whole company. All of those actions are undertaken to emphasize what is most important from a company perspective and to promote company’s cultural expectations.

What is the correlation between the culture promoted by a company and how people behave?

Is a consistent organizational culture important at all?

Over the last few days, I had the chance to observe the “interesting” organizational culture in … one of the Polish, small-town hospitals. My husband had an accident in the mountains and was taken to a hospital, I didn’t know. He had to wait for surgery for some days. Apart from the stress caused by his accident and surgery, I didn’t anticipate feeling any other emotions at the hospital. Unfortunately, from the moment I took the first step into this place, I felt extensive uncertainty and lack of confidence. There was only one question in my head — “what is going on here?” All my emotions were evoked by the following observables:

Between the hospital buildings there was prominent and clear information “smoking forbidden within the hospital’s area” and just 3 meters further along there was a huge ashtray surrounded by smokers.
Similar information in the hospital’s restroom didn’t deter people from smoking and people were even smoking in the hospital beds.
While shopping at 22:30 in a grocery store about 300 meters away from the hospital, I met a patient with a plaster on his leg. I was the only person surprised by this.
There was information in the hospital ward with a ban on staying after 10 PM. Of course, I was visiting my husband at this time and no one even suggested that I should leave.

My impression after the first visit was that I missed something and I didn’t know what I should know. I had no idea what the rules were and how real organizational culture looked like in this place.

Let’s analyze the situation I observed in this hospital based on my favorite model of organizational culture described by Edgar Schein.

Ideal organization — Edgar Schein’s organizational culture model

Schein assumes that there are three levels of organizational culture.

The first level called artifacts refers to what we can observe, to tangible evidence how the culture looks, especially in terms of relationship, behaviours and physical aspects such as inner amenities, the office design etc.

-The second level talks about norms, rules and values that employees follow. Some of them can be visible because the company wants to highlight them by displaying them on posters or handing the guide rules to new employees. You should be able to understand less visible norms by asking “why” about everything that puzzles you or just needs an explanation.

The deepest, third level is the tacit and shared assumptions the company and its employees have. This level is completely invisible and is the foundation of organizational culture and is based on our inner convictions that are taken for granted

In an ideal world, in an ideal company, organizational culture is consistent at all levels. The company’s and our beliefs are reflected in company policies and values, which are then followed by employees. You should easily be able to observe that people’s day-to-day behaviours and values promoted by the company are consistent. Tacit assumptions cause and drive people’s behaviour.

Reality — organizational culture model in the hospital.

From the first glance it was clearly visible that noticeable behaviours were non-compliance with the rules promoted by the hospital (a contradiction between the first and second level). Employees and patients did not follow the rules that were posted and even generally accepted standards. If employees do not follow the company’s values and beliefs, it is a sign that they must be based on other values and beliefs.

Based on the Edgar Schein organizational culture model, from the second level there is a split into norms and values promoted by the organization and those guided by the employees. Going a step further, you can see that the same situation is tacit and shared assumptions. The company and employees are guided by various convictions and beliefs on which they build their own values and norms. In this situation, we can find two types of cultures expected by the company and one that is actually alive among employees.

I think most of us have experienced the latter case, working for a company that promotes culture and values on posters, but employees do not understand and do not identify with them. Sometimes it could be perceived even as high-management’s propaganda. But on the flip side, if you ask the employees about rules, everyone will tell you what to do and how to behave in such an environment and unfortunately such guidance can be far away from the company’s expectations.

So, is it worth to invest in creating a consistent organizational culture?

What do we lose if we don’t have a coherent organizational culture in the company?

Motivation — if we do not understand why the organization has picked certain values we will lose context and will not understand decisions and actions undertaken by higher management. In the long run, if decisions are contradictory to our values, this will cause a sense that our voice and opinion is meaningless and without any impact. Going further this entails a drop of motivation and our engagement at work.
Time and energy — that we need to devote to understand how to behave in the company and what caused those rules (tacit assumptions). While I have been in the hospital for 3 hours every day for two weeks I have assumed some hypothesis that is underlying the causes of behaviours I have observed. But understanding the culture and its foundations would take several months.
Confidence — when you see the contradiction between how people behave and how they should behave based on company rules or social norms we tend to take a step back in order to observe and understand the culture and borders better. To see and define which rules are valid to follow. Even if I disagree internally with smoking in a hospital bed, I did not react, because everyone, and especially the hospital staff considered such behaviour to be normal.

What do we gain by having the consistent organizational culture?

Safety — in a place where we have clear, understandable values or rules and we can easily notice that people’s actions are driven by them, we will trust and feel safe. If I saw such coherence in the hospital, it would be much easier for me to believe that the hospital’s staff will do their best during my husband’s surgery.
A sense of belonging — we identify with the organization because our beliefs and values are similar. For that to happen we have to understand the employer’s perspective — dig deeper and see real, meaningful reasons why those values are so crucial. If we were following them what benefits we would provide to the company, employees and our customers. This is the only way to find a profound meaning and roots of the organizational culture to identify with it.
Work with a harmony with personal values — If the company has a consistent culture, we can explain it to potential future candidates. We can give them the possibility to make a rational decision whether such a culture is in line with their personal values and whether they want to work in such a company.

Is it really worth to build a coherent organizational culture? Definitely yes. If the hospital I visited, had such coherence, I would feel safe and I would trust nurses and doctors that my husband is in good hands. We should aim for this feeling for our employees in our organizations because they just simply deserve it.