When we travel I would say that the majority of us pride ourselves on being very aware travelers. It seems safe to say that we are aware of the culture around us depending on surroundings and the countries that we enter into.
When applying this to the business world it begs to ask the question, “are we as aware of the corporate culture that we operate and live in on a daily basis? I would argue that many of us are not as cognizant of it as we ought to be.
Entrepreneur.com defines corporate culture as, “A blend of the values, beliefs, taboos, symbols, rituals and myths all companies develop over time.” From my understanding and experience corporate culture is becoming an ever more important component of job choice and satisfaction.
Corporate culture is something that we need to work on understanding because whether we understand it fully or not we are a contributor of it. In an article from the Harvard Business Review by Bill Barnett, he talks about the importance of corporate culture is when selecting a job. He talks about how you need to be observant of the organizations purpose, through reading everything about the organization and inquiring from various perspectives within and outside of the organization.
This idea of understanding one’s organizational culture reminds me of the 90/10 to 60/40 rule by Jim Canteruccui. It states that 90% of our time is spent in our own department and only 10% on the understanding the organization as a whole. If we can shift to 60% focused on our departments tasks and 40% on the organization as a whole the difference it would make.
I believe to fully understand our corporate culture we need to practice this 60/40 rule to achieve a more complete perspective. If we can grasp the culture of the organization in which we function, we can ensure that it is a healthy environment. This also allows us to access whether a corporate culture is the right fit for our personality, talents and desires.
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