Why Culture is the most powerful asset of an organization
This article was written by Dana Gomez and Alicia Rubio, which serve a key role in the management of Parque Tecnológico Orión.
Given the current Covid-19 pandemic the global work environment has had a major shift: remote work and digitalization are now (forcefully) becoming the standard. Now, more than ever, is important to maintain the culture and sense of community within your company, and truth is, you don’t need everyone physically together to build a strong culture. First of all though, we need to know what culture is and why it is the most important asset you will have in your organization.
Culture is something that works internally but reflects on the outside who you are and how you work as an organization.
You can think about it this way: the culture is the personality of the organization.
So now, what is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear about organizational culture?
Probably you’ll go on and list the values, beliefs, mission and vision of the organization that are printed on some wall in your office. This is all true, but all of this components are just pieces of a whole picture.
Culture it’s about how the team works together as a cohesive unit, and in fact, has several functions such as: differentiating one company from the others, transmits a sense of identity to the members of the organization and to generate commitments with something beyond just interest.
As such, it has tangible and intangible components:
- Tangible is what you can see, for instance the dress-code, behavior, communication and even the infrastructure.
- Intangible is what you can’t see but perceive, eg. the values, beliefs,assumptions, practices, or how problems are addressed and how you celebrate the success.
So, an effective team culture means that team members and their work fits in the context of the organization sharing the same goals, so they’re able and willing to discuss and adjust their work behavior and mindset to make sure everyone feels comfortable and confident to work towards these common goals.
That’s why is important to notice that people are the ones who make the culture, and in turn, the culture determines how people respond to vision and leadership. As an individual, if your heart and mind are not in the right place, you can’t expect to achieve your best results. On the other hand, we know that employees who feel valuable are more productive. As an organization, an Inspirational culture will act as an accelerator for your vision, it will be the heart and the head, that will shape what we do with our hands.
Samuel R. Chand in his book “Inspira: cómo crear una cultura organizacional poderosa”, lists the characteristics of an inspirational culture as:
- An environment based on respect and trust is cultivated (starting with the leader)
- Teamwork is enjoyed and employees feel valuable
- Creativity and innovation are rewarded so failure is not fatal
- Communication flows freely; authority is decentralized
- Leaders give clear direction
- Each staff person has a sense of purpose and believes what they do is significant and part of a cause bigger than themselves. The input of others is valued in decision-making
- Equipping opportunities are valued and available
Last year, on december 8th, we had the opportunity to participate on a business trip to San Francisco, Ca. to experience how the great and most famous companies in Silicon Valley work in order to inspire ourselves and understand how an inspirationational culture looks and feels like.
We visited Microsoft and had the most amazing tour ever! people where so open and friendly that really make us feel welcome. Here we could learned that Microsoft is a platform where you can do the work you love, and impact millions of people while you can continue your education & training to elevate your passions. Actually their mission is “Empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more”
Then we have Google, where it felt like Disneyland! here, we participated in a panel with Q&A with wonderful people from latino background that worked in tech and human resources. We had the chance to ask them how it feels to be part of Google’s world where one of the most interesting thing was that employees have the 80/20 rule where you can use 20% of your time to work in a personal project (even if is not part of your job’s responsibilities), and invite some coworkers to get involved. People here are hungry to learn something new every day.
Another company we visited was HITACHI, a company that creates data through Media, here what amazed us is that their offices are full of technology everywhere, for real, wherever you look you can find walls with important facts, a really big screen at the middle of a room where you can interact with data, or displays that register visitors through facial recognition. Hitachi is a japanese company, formal but welcoming at the same time, they take care in precision in terms of data which allow to know their clients better than anyone.
The common denominator of these big companies is that their culture revolves around putting people first. As Jessica Ruelas- said in her article — leaders need to understand that the most important asset of the company are the employees, which translates to having a Human-centered organizational culture.
This is something that you cannot only see but feel when you enter the place. Now, how do we replicate that sense of culture and community when people are not physically there? The answer is communication. Effective and open communication is crucial to a remote team; there are a bunch of tools, tips & tricks for remote work but communications is always the heart of it.
Discuss, adjust and improve, we are all learning to navigate this crisis. Create an open environment that allows the team to express themselves, what are their fears and expectations, how everyone can contribute to make the team and company better.
“You don’t need everyone physically together to create a strong culture. The best cultures derive from actions people actually take.“
by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
