Cultural Norms - Strength You Can Tap Into
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Managing Organisational Culture is about harnessing the organisation’s Cultural Norms.
The 1st thing to recognise is that Organisational “Cultural Norms” are Constant, Pervasive, and Unrelenting.
Like ocean waves, they don’t recognise boundaries – they just roll through them and around them – but they are also a strength you can tap into.
Cultural Norms ebb and flow across the organisation as people interact across the organisation. It is these interactions that form and reinforce the Cultural Norms.
Organisational Cultural Norms cannot be measured like you would measure Personal Psychological Feelings.
At BPA, we use an eye-witness methodology that asks employees to reflect on what they are observing and experiencing in their normal working life.
It doesn’t ask them how engaged they personally feel. It asks them to comment on what they are observing around them – that is, how they are experiencing the ebb and flow of the Cultural Norms around them.
At an organisational level, measures of Cultural Norms are normally a much deeper and stable predictor of ongoing workforce behaviour than just relying on measures of personal feelings or moods.
Cultural Norms are a useful organisational asset – personal moods are not.
Part of this methodology’s strength comes from the fact that employees form their views from a wide range of sources. Employees will draw upon what they see, hear and experience with:
The people they work with on a daily basis;
The leaders of their work unit and Division;
Their contacts with colleagues and leaders outside their Division;
The Executive leaders of the organisations;
Interactions with clients;
Social Media and general media reports about their organisation; and
Even the views of family and friends.
So, when you sum these observations across all the work units and divisions in the organisation, you get a much more valid and accurate measure of the organisational culture and the level of employee engagement embedded in it.
Are you harnessing your Cultural Norms as an organisational asset?
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