Human Skills: Organization Culture
An organization’s culture doesn’t pop out of thin air. Once established it rarely fades away. An organization’s current customs, traditions and general way of doing things are largely due to what it has done before and the degree of success it has had with those attempts. The first ultimate source of an organization’s culture is its founders.
The founder(s) of an organization traditionally has a major impact on that organization’s early culture. They have a vision of what the organization should be. They are free from previous customs and ideologies.
Organization culture characteristics:
1. Innovation and Risk Taking
2. Attention to Detail
3. Outcome Orientation
4. People Orientation
5. Team Orientation
6. Aggressiveness
7. Stability
Barrier to change
Barrier to diversity
Barrier to Acquisitions and Mergers
How to keep the organizational culture alive?
- Reinforcement from the top management
- Selection of new employees: The candidate should be tested to check if he or she fits the organization culture before selection.
- Story telling- How was it done? How did we reach to this point?
- Symbols and Jargon which is unique to the organization
Organization culture does change and evolve over a period of time but as the founders of this organization you would want to retain the best components of the culture along the way.