Workplace Culture
I recently read an article emphasising the value of workplace culture, which I completely agree with. However, while the article stressed the need for the right culture, it didn't cover how to implement it. This is probably because culture often remains an unspoken mindset, yet it profoundly influences everything we do.
I believe workplace culture is shaped from the top, with leadership, especially at the highest level, being fully responsible. Essentially, organisations with a strong culture usually have robust governance.
To understand what I am trying to highlight here, we should firstly look at the definition of culture. Culture is defined as a “set of values that are shared by a group of people, including ideas, beliefs, practices and expectations about how people should be behave".
So, without over-simplifying this, we can compare this with a parent/child relationship. Children usually imitate their parents' ideas, beliefs, practices, and expectations. As they mature, these beliefs and practices often evolve significantly under the influence of others.
Culture in the workplace however, can be evidenced in a similar way, through the:
scope of controls
power of hierarchical influence
level of trust to allow others to express themselves, experiment and make decisions
preparedness to share knowledge, develop others and welcome inquisitiveness
In summary, a poster on a wall saying all the right things may indeed enthuse and promote but this is just an intention, or designed give an impression of what we want people to see but culture is silent behaviour, so the question is, are we just 'talking the walk' or are we prepared to put on our shoes on and 'walk the talk'?
In the workplace, enterprise goals should cascade down to the strategies of each organisation, then to teams and individuals. . Essentially, design should be top-down, while implementation should be bottom. Governing bodies plan and direct, and provide strategic direction, whereas management handles execution to enact that strategy. In many cases there’s a misalignment with all of this, resulting in goals and objectives competing with each other or are unclear, leading to a cultural disconnect
Introducing and adopting a set of Guiding Principles can ensure we genuinely practice what we preach by embedding these values into our organisational culture.
I have posted an article on how to implement Guiding Principles in the workplace, titled “Guiding Principles” which can be found in the Group “ITIL® by ITSM Assist.