Piggy-backing on my last article, today we are going to look at what to keep an eye out for when building company culture, and critically, when building a good company culture. So, what do I mean by good company culture?
By good company culture I do not mean the same culture everywhere.
Good company culture will not be the same for every business in every industry.
Digital industries will have other requirements than heavy engineering, than the health and care sector, etc…
By a good company culture I mean a culture that:
- enables the way of working that is needed in your sector,
- it creates a working environment that people can bring as much of their whole selves to as possible.
- allows for open appreciative communication, while actively addressing things that did not go well.
What do all of these points mean?
Enabling a way of working that is needed in your sector:
Obviously different product requirements, work processes, relationships with suppliers, requirements for raw materials, etc… make for different ways of working in different industries.
This can result in the need to be highly flexible, highly innovative, highly structured, highly safety oriented or something else entirely…. Obviously an airplane manufacturer will have different requirements on their ways of working than a digital marketing agency. In fact even each area of expertise in these companies may have different way-of-working, supported by the over-arcing company culture.
Creating a working environment that people can bring as much of their whole selves to as possible:
This refers to how much their personalities can employees show in their working lives in your company.
Is there enough space to allow for everyone’s unique qualities that they bring to the table, or is there a requirement to conform to a certain degree. Do the jobs fit the people or do the people need to fit the job? Let’s be realistic, there is usually some degree of fitting required, because maybe that dream job someone has, that they excel at, doesn’t allow for all of the aspects of their personality to be visible at all times. But how much of themselves can they bring to the table? The more they can bring to the table, the better for the team and the better for the performance.
People who are comfortable being who they are at work don’t need to spend their time and energy trying to hide that. They can focus on bringing great performance.
Allowing for open appreciative communication, while actively addressing things that did not go well:
It’s all fine and well having an appreciative communication environment, where people can give each other positive feedback.
However, if that is paired with an inability to give critical feedback, and maybe also a reluctance to address conflict, this will show in mistakes that should have been addressed and could have been easily solved festering for way too long and costing the employees energy, time, and the company, frankly, money.
Receiving positive feedback and appreciation is a fundamental human need, but it gets us only so far if it is not paired with feedback on things that could have gone better, need to be improved or just plain, went really badly. That doesn’t mean that mistakes should lead to company wide strict castigations – to the contrary, as that would not be productive either – but mistakes should be addressed openly, and solutions found for what can be done better next time and in order to stop maybe bigger errors from occurring.
Related posts
Organisationen ‚inside out‘ – aus Kund*innen Perspektive
Empathie: nachhaltige Beziehungen zwischen Mitarbeiter*innen stärken
7 Programme, die Ihr Unternehmen in der sozialen Verantwortung stärken
Coaching vom Underdog & Servant Leadership
Empathie – eine Schlüsselkompetenz für psychologische Sicherheit
Was treibt mich an? Warum ich für das, was ich als Business Coach und Trainerin mache, brenne.