The Winning Culture

Cultures and rules

One of the most important things about organizational cultures is the extent to which they rely on rules and regulations.  Obviously, every organization needs to have some rules.  But trust is something that differentiates cultures.  Let's compare the two.  Trust and and rules run counter to each other.  That is, an organization imposes a rule to attempt to make something happen or prevent something from happening.  Rules primarily affect people.  Therefore, we impose rules because we don't trust that people will make the right decisions.

For example, in an organization we trust that people will act nicely to each other because they care about each other.  Consequently, we don't necessarily place rules about what we can say and what we can't.  If we don't have that trust, or too many people violate the "unwritten" rule, then we impose the written rule.  What is often called "political correctness," is the result of a lot of rules being passed because people don't trust that others will talk without offending.    

The problem is that rules all have unintended consequences.  The collaborative culture tends not to have as many rules.  The bureaucratic culture has more rules.  They both have some rules.  The distinguishing factor about the cultures is where is the primary trust. In the collaborative culture, the person is trusted more, and consequently, there are fewer rules.  In the bureaucratic culture the rules and regulations tend to be trusted more.

The recent news article about the Eagle Scout who was suspended from school for 20 days for having a small pocket knife locked in the mess kit in his locked car is a great example.  The school system had a "no tolerance" policy about weapons on the school ground.  Consequently, they were forced to carry out the policy regardless of what might have been "right" under the circumstances.  The amount of negative publicity they received about this incident points out some of the negative consequences about the decision.

The primary thing is that the school board must ask themselves.  Does the "no tolerance" policy really create a more safe school system, or was the rule placed there to protect the school system either from lawsuits or criticism from people.  That is a question only the board can answer.

When passing a rule for our organization, we must ask questions about the cost of enforcing the rule, the unintended consequences of the rule, why the rule is being proposed, and if will really accomplish its intended purpose. 

Recognizing competition

Check out the news in Durango, Colorado.  If you look back over the past couple of years you see that the public school system has lost students and therefore revenue.  Needless to say, they are crying the blues.  Then, read that one new charger school has been started and one other one proposed.  Read competition.  Unfortunately, the school system, which is an obvious bureaucratic system, hasn't figured it out that they are losing revenue due to the competitive model which may very well be  a collaborative system.  This happens all the time, but the bureaucracy won't recognize it until too late.  

Core Values

One of the primary reasons organizations function in a dysfunctional way is that the departments are staffed with people who have severely different core values.  For a team to work, it must have members who share common core values.  This means that the Board of Directors must work on agreeing how the team will function - how it will made decisions and how it's members will act.  When the team has come to an agreement, then each team member becomes accountable to the entire team.

In my experience, most groups do not go to the trouble to accomplish this.  They may very well spell out the vision, mission, and even the values for the organization as a whole, but they fail to agree on the vision, mission, and values of the individual team.  If an organization really wants to function well, each and every department (team) must agree on the vision, mission, and values for that team.  For example, the marketing department (team) will have its vision, mission, and values statements.  The accounting team will have the same.  In both cases the visions, missions, and value statements will coordinate with those of the whole organization, but each will be very different.  

Why Culture Matters

When push comes to shove, there are only really two things that an organization needs to do if it wants to be successful.  It needs to 

Serve customers well

and

Do it efficiently

If the organization can accomplish this better than the competition, it will be more successful and make more money.

The fact is that collaborative culture organization serve customers better and they do it more efficiently. Thus, they are more successful.  

Make a list of several completely successful organizations.  Now make a list of unsuccessful organizations.  You will see that the first list represent companies that serve customers better and they do it more efficiently.  The unsuccessful companies, on the other hand, give relatively poor customer service and they are less efficient.  

One of the best examples is in the automobile business.  GM did not give good service. Yes, they probably had a bunch of nice people, but they made cars that did not have the high-standard of quality.  Toyota, on the other hand, made better cars.  Toyota developed "just-in-time" inventory methods and other things that made it more efficient.  GM employees were too busy negotiating health-care benefits to spend a lot of time trying to improve efficiency.  The results are clear.

For another example look at Southwest Airlines as compared to the most of the rest of the airlines. 

GM and most of the airlines are bureaucratic cultures.  Toyota and Southwest are collaborative cultures. Do we think there is a difference?  Which would you rather drive or fly?

Yes, culture matters a lot!

Why a culture blog?

For the past several years I have been researching different organizational cultures to see how they correlated with organizational success.  It became clear that there was a direct connection, and that the collaborative culture works far better at serving customers and doing it efficiently than the bureaucracy.  From that, I've been writing new seminar materials, speaking on the issue, and doing some consulting with organizations who wish to be more successful.  The concept is simple, but it is difficult.  

I'm finishing a set of materials on the subject that has been sold to the American Institute of Certified Public Accounts.  I will be teaching that new course next year.  Once it has been finished, I hope to write a more more popularly distributed book on the same subject. 

My passion is still for successful organizations, and I feel strongly that I'm on that correct path to assist in making that happen.  Culture is key. 

As my thoughts and the book further develop, I'll be posing those thoughts on this blog.  If you are interested in organizational success, I would suggest you keep abreast of what's happening here.  Most importantly, I hope you will comment on my posts.  If you disagree, I hope to hear from you.  I'll argue with you about it, but that should sharpen us both.