Frequently there are competing interests within an organization that can create conflicts. Some of these are more significant than others such as safety or ethical breaches, while others may be quite benign, though still counter to the stated direction or goals of an organization.
When we think about these competing interests two of the quickest to come to mind are the potential for trading safety for speed and trading quality for throughput. These two conflicts when broken down are hard to justify as true conflicts in many of our modern western workplaces. It is hard to justify injuries and deaths as just numbers when compared to meeting a schedule in a manufacturing environment. It is just as difficult to justify lapses in quality due to pressure for completing work. These quality issues will most likely come up in a warranty clause, not saving any money from the shortcut taken and in extreme instances, quality issues for critical components can have life and death consequences in some products.
But how does performance come out in culture? Kris Dunn believes that culture is "less about free soda and ping pong tables and more about performance." Surely an organization must ultimately perform if it wishes to have continuity of operation, but virtually every organization must perform.
It seems that based on the inability to justify cutting corners or having ethical lapses, there must still be performance. There must still be something in the way that performance occurs that is in the culture secret sauce.
I will continue to investigate the underpinnings of culture moving forward as well as the very important question of how to build, develop, grow and share components of organizational culture, taking the new assumption that performance without ethical tradeoffs is a norm for a healthy or positive culture.
Connected Culture
Thursday, April 30, 2015
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Assumptions & Definitions
In this investigation, there are several assumptions that I will make and a
few definitions that will need to be outlined. In future posts, if there
is an additional assumption or definition of an ambiguous term, I will share
during those posts.
Assumptions:
Social connections will be either face to face or virtual using some sort of social media or social community.
Social media is a general term, there are many examples of publically available as well as private internal to an organization. Examples could include large public offerings such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter or internal restricted social media such as Yammer and Jive among others. Additionally blogs and wikis will be included in this category.
Definitions:
Here are a couple of definitions of terms that I will be using when I write further posts.
Network – An association of individuals having a common interest, formed to provide mutual assistance or to share information amongst each other.
Organizational Culture - Underlying beliefs, assumptions, values, symbols, artifacts and stories that shape action within an organization.
Assumptions:
Social connections will be either face to face or virtual using some sort of social media or social community.
Social media is a general term, there are many examples of publically available as well as private internal to an organization. Examples could include large public offerings such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter or internal restricted social media such as Yammer and Jive among others. Additionally blogs and wikis will be included in this category.
Definitions:
Here are a couple of definitions of terms that I will be using when I write further posts.
Network – An association of individuals having a common interest, formed to provide mutual assistance or to share information amongst each other.
Organizational Culture - Underlying beliefs, assumptions, values, symbols, artifacts and stories that shape action within an organization.
Saturday, April 25, 2015
What is This All About
Hello,
This blog will be a place to share learnings and to ask questions around the topic of developing a culture through social connections. These social connections can be direct personal connections or virtual through social networks.
Why "Chicken or Egg" in the blog title?
In this topic, I have a question that is recurring in my head - what comes first, a culture that attracts connections or a group of connections that determine or set the tone of a culture?
Future posts may further investigate the definitions of culture and networks in order to better understand what is being learned or discovered in this endeavor. Additionally, looking at the types of networks that are most prominent and those that are utilized in ways conducive to culture building could be covered.
A specific application for what may come from this blog is to apply toward onboarding and incorporating diverse corporate or organizational cultures that may be coming into a larger organizational culture through acquisitions or through geographic diversification.
This blog will be a place to share learnings and to ask questions around the topic of developing a culture through social connections. These social connections can be direct personal connections or virtual through social networks.
Why "Chicken or Egg" in the blog title?
In this topic, I have a question that is recurring in my head - what comes first, a culture that attracts connections or a group of connections that determine or set the tone of a culture?
Future posts may further investigate the definitions of culture and networks in order to better understand what is being learned or discovered in this endeavor. Additionally, looking at the types of networks that are most prominent and those that are utilized in ways conducive to culture building could be covered.
A specific application for what may come from this blog is to apply toward onboarding and incorporating diverse corporate or organizational cultures that may be coming into a larger organizational culture through acquisitions or through geographic diversification.
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