HR Basics: Organziational Culture

HR Basics is a series of short courses, designed to highlight what you need to know about a particular human resource management topic. In today’s HR Basics, we explore organizational culture, exploring a three part model that clarifies organizational values, behavior and mission.

Culture is shared patterns of difference in an organization. Culture is simply ‘how’ we do things around here. The key to a successful organization is to have a culture based on a strongly held and widely shared set of beliefs that are supported by strategy and structure. An organization's culture defines the proper way to behave within the organization.

A simple model highlights three key elements of organizational culture – an organization’s values, behaviors, mission. The better you are at articulating your culture, the more successful you will be in attracting people that believe in and help fulfill the mission.

Are some values ‘better’ than others? What is it that we value? Let’s explore values, and the impact of values on organizational culture. Organizational values are enduring beliefs that are important to the organization.

Remember, culture is how we do things around here. Leaders and employees alike can reflect and share the organization’s cultural values through the way they behave. Behaviors are what we see in an organization.

Behaviors can be seen in three ways: symbols, norms and traditions. Symbols: An object or act that stands for something that is widely understood among employees. Norms: How employees think, feel and behave that are repeated frequently and articulated in the organization’s values. Traditions: Traditions reinforce specific values, and allow employees to share together in an important event or achievement.

Fulfillment comes from having a clear sense of purpose, from knowing why we do what we do. When an organization starts with mission, they stand for something bigger than any result or metric. They are better able to attract and unite employees, customers and partners. And their people love coming to work. A mission statement is what the organization does now.

Values, behaviors and mission provide the kind of holistic, nuanced view of organizational culture that is needed by leaders in order to truly understand their organizations - and to have any hope of changing them for the better.