A Deeper Look At Different Company Cultures

A deciding factor...a company’s culture helps determine who a company will attract, to what degree those people will thrive, and therefore whether the company will succeed.

Culture dictates how we behave and think; thus understanding culture, both within and outside the company, is critical to an organisation's success. The culture within helps determine who a company will attract, to what degree those people will thrive, and therefore whether the company will succeed.

Research conducted at the Cross Cultural Resource Center at California State University, Sacramento, several years ago revealed four types of company cultures: traditional, challenging, open and synchronous. The researchers analysed each in six different areas: key behaviour, payoff, goal, information, decision-making and leadership.

Traditional Culture

In a traditional company, the key behaviour is following orders, the payoff is security and the goal is continuity. Information is filtered; you get what the company wants you to know. The upper echelon makes all the decisions, and position, rather than knowledge, determines leadership.

One example of a traditional company is the old IBM. Back in the fifties and sixties, Big Blue dictated where employees could live and what types of cars they could drive, based on their status in the organisation. Everyone wore the traditional grey suit.

As a side note—during the old IBM days I was the guest of an executive and came into the cafeteria wearing a very professional pantsuit. People gasped.  Women were supposed to wear skirts and dresses to work, not pants. Becky Morgan, then CEO of Joint Venture-Silicon Valley, shared with me that she had similar experiences back in the sixties.

“Back in the fifties and sixties, Big Blue dictated where employees could live and what types of cars they could drive, based on their status in the organisation.”

Challenging Culture

In a challenging company, the key behaviour is people opposing each other, the payoff is uniqueness and the goal is creativity. Information is shared on a need-to-know basis and decisions are made at the lowest level. Leadership is supportive rather than dictatorial.

Here in Silicon Valley, we think of companies like Apple and Oracle as having challenging cultures.

Open Culture

In an open company, the key behaviour is initiating, the payoff is accomplishment and the goal is results. Everyone gets maximum information. Those affected make the decisions and those with the greatest ability to fill leadership positions.

Google, at least as we imagine it to be, is an example of an open company.

In a challenging company, the key behaviour is people opposing each other, the payoff is uniqueness and the goal is creativity.

Synchronous Culture

In a synchronous company, employees are self-directed and use their full potential. The goal is peak performance and information is self-contained—everyone knows and shares the information they acquire and/or need. Decision-making is intuitive; that is, each person comes to his or her own decisions. And leadership is internalised—each person is his or her own leader.

Perhaps most startups fit this description. Sometimes we see this type of organisation in very creative companies such as advertising agencies and art groups.


A Great Company Culture

The six components of an outstanding company culture, according to John Coleman of Harvard Business Review, are vision, values, practices, people, narrative and place.
Here's how I interpret these components:

Vision - The vision is a dream; it's what the company wants to accomplish.

Values - These are ways of treating everyone, including clients, employees and stakeholders. They are the core of the culture, so they must be clearly communicated and repeated from time to time. Values should be honest and real and embraced by everyone. It’s important that they not be banal and cloying. People need to believe in them, and management must model them at all times.

Practices - These tell us what to do and what not to do. They're the way we behave, how we do things. Naturally, they should be consistent with our values.

People - In a great company, people are hired because they are the best fit for the job. They are treated well, work happily and are dedicated to their responsibilities.

Narrative - This is the company's esprit de corps, what makes employees proud to belong. Think of the Marine Corps and Navy Seals. Even those who don't belong to these outfits stand a little taller when they hear the words Marine Corps and Navy Seals. By the way, this is why companies that seem horrible to us are successful. Employees are proud to work for them despite how they treat their people.

Space - This may seem like a strange component of company culture but actually it's critical. Ask yourself: How is your office space configured? Is it open? Does it support conversation, or discourage it? Is your space divided into prison-like cubes? Are people within easy reach of those with whom they need to communicate?

Space Shapes Culture

For example, it's easier to find colleagues and hold a spontaneous conversation in an open setting than it is in a tight cube environment. Also, the latter setting makes you feel a supervisor is constantly watching over you, which I think is deadly. This might sound backwards, but really—if you are living in a cubicle you can’t really see who is watching and listening to you.

Here's another example of how space shapes culture. I once consulted with a company that was running out of space while one of its groups was growing. So it moved two members across the hall. As a result, the pair missed out on a lot of decision-making and eventually were part of the team in name only. Call this "collateral damage" or "unintended consequences." Whatever. Team members need to be together.

The moral here is that when employees aren't readily accessible to each other, it's much harder to connect. And if their supervisor is constantly observing them, or if they even think that's the case, they'll feel mistrusted. Which can't be good for the organisation.

Companies now allow a number of employees to work from home, but some are finding this reduces teamwork, creativity, motivation and even productivity. They are also discovering that working from home only "works" with people who can manage themselves. Those who can't need to be in the office. As a result, some organisations are changing their policies and insisting employees return to the workplace.

In a way this is amusing, because many of these same companies changed the configuration of their workspace, removing desks and chairs and creating something called “hoteling,” which called for work-at-home employees to reserve an office or small conference room as needed. Now the company must restore the offices and cubicles.

Some companies have been wise enough to create spaces that invite people to stop and chat—to conduct informal meetings. For example, some have opened up the inner walls of a group of cubicles and placed a small round table and chairs in the centre, allowing for conversation. Others have set up areas near staircases and elevators for small, seated, impromptu discussions.

And still, other companies have come up with even more dramatic ideas, such as eliminating smaller staircases and creating one that's big, central and extra wide with deep steps, thus inviting people who bump into each other on the stairs to have spontaneous conversations.

So, what kind of culture do you want for your organisation? The choices are infinite but none are perfect. You may be highly competitive and wildly successful, but your people could eventually burn out. You may be top-down and authoritarian, appealing to low-level workers seeking job security, but your more independent people might chafe at this confinement. You may be open and friendly, but that would require a widespread commitment to the company's goals.

In my view, the culture that produces the best results is participatory management. In this environment, all employees may share their ideas and opinions, which are honoured and nurtured.

But—and this is no less important—the person with the expertise, no matter what her or his level in the company, must make the final decision. Ultimately, of course, the CEO has final authority; think veto power.

Participatory management also allows different ideas and even arguments to occur in the quest to find and implement the best possible solution to a problem.

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Arlyne Diamond Pj.D is an Organisational Development and Human Resource Consultant with over 30 years experience. The article above is an excerpt from her book titled “Culture Inside the Company and Outside the Country”. She can be reached at ArLyne@DiamondAssociates.net.