Digital Badge Quest 4: Organizational Culture

What is organizational culture? I’m in four Communication classes here at Queens this semester, including Organizational Communication (this class) and Intercultural Communication. In my Intercultural class, my professor gave us one definition of culture that I think can be perfectly applied to organizational culture: “it’s a set of material practices that indicate who people think they are.” Organizational culture is the behavior of individuals in an organization and the meanings, values, symbols, etc. that they attach (culture is made up of the values, belief systems, rituals, ethnicities, religious/spiritual systems, language, symbols, and more). It can be found in any type of organization based on what the group thinks is important and places value on.

The Denison Culture Model regarding organizations

The article Conflict in the Workplace: Why Can’t We Just Put Everyone in Time Out? by Roberta Matuson for Fast Company discusses more effective methods to use when dealing with fighting employees and conflict at work. She states that by using a few techniques, such as clearly defining boundaries and roles, addressing communication, and solving power struggles and conflicts of interest, leaders in the workplace can be more effective coaches rather than referees. This is very important to take into consideration at work, because an organization where individuals spend so much time and energy is bound to have conflict. By giving employees the tools to solve their own problems and acting as a mediator, a leader can help to solve issues and put the focus on harmony in the workplace. Asking each side to describe the issue and how they’re feeling, as well as what outcome they’d like to see, can take care of conflicts effectively and maturely.

For one of our classes, we went outside to do a group ball exercise with four tennis balls each given to two groups. I was the “leader” of my group, though my only instructions were to let my group figure out the best way to accomplish the task while repeating the instructions, “same order of balls, same order of people.” The task of the activity was to have every person in the group pass or touch the balls in the same order, though how we did it was up to us. I didn’t instruct any of the people in my group on how or what to do, so everyone was throwing out ideas- some were worth trying, and others were pretty silly. We started with a time of 22 seconds which soon turned into 18, and then 15. The group wanted to give up once we hit a pretty good time, and I encouraged them to try again because we could do better. Eventually, we made it down to 12 seconds and then 6; soon, we had it down to under a second with our innovative ideas on how to efficiently and quickly accomplish the goal. We ended up making a tube with our hands stacked on top of each other. Since I was the first one to start it, I dropped the ball at the top of our tube, and we let gravity take the balls down in order as each person touched them as we were told. The other group in the class came up with a completely different way to accomplish the task, and we both did well in different ways.

For my “Cultural Explorer Activity,” I analyzed my sorority here on Queens’ campus, Kappa Delta. I am on council currently as Vice President-Member Education, which means that I teach our new members and sisters, plan and execute a successful Bid Day and new member period, and focus on our ritual and ceremonies. I’m second in command behind the President, so I have plenty of experience firsthand of seeing how things are run in our chapter. I also was on council last year as Vice President-Membership, so I planned our entire Recruitment for that year. Compared to last year, our council this year runs so much more smoothly and communicates much more efficiently. We still have a ways to go to be our absolute best, but there have been some issues in the past couple of years when some council members didn’t do their jobs completely. When certain members of the group didn’t pull their weight, things didn’t get done and it really dragged the entire council down. This year, we’ve really focused on open communication, proper training, and using each other as resources, so things have improved and brought us all closer together. We value communicating and bouncing ideas off of each other, which has really boosted sisterhood and friendships amongst our chapter. Last year, some council members rarely did their jobs accurately or participated, so it was often a tense and uncreative environment; it was difficult to accomplish anything of value when it seemed as if no one cared. This year, with a completely new council and fresh ideas to go along with the fresh faces, almost everyone has given 100%, and it’s a much more supportive environment. Our meetings run more smoothly and everyone participates, so open communication amongst those on council helps provide a united front to the rest of the chapter. More than ever (thanks to my position), we value our ritual and our sisterhood through our ceremonies, alumnae reunions, and various sisterhood events.

Alpha Omicron Chapter of Kappa Delta Sorority on Bid Day 2013!

In chapter 16 of Weaving Complexity and Business: Engaging the Soul at Work by Roger Lewin and Birute Regine, emergent teams are discussed as quickly-organized groups of people who join together usually during times of crisis in the spirit of goodwill and care. During emergency situations, such as natural disasters or accidents, teams of people organize very quickly to solve problems, and they become very trusting of and reliant on each other. These groups of people are self-selected, which is significant because leaders emerge from the groups and individuals each focus on accomplishing different tasks to help achieve the goal together. In normal organizational environments, there are often people who refuse to work together or cause problems for the group as a whole; the difference with emergent teams is that the life-or-death crisis situations bring people together who are highly organized in a very short period of time and all work together. Their intentions are not to make money, build up a company, or focus on the bottom line, but they are to help each other and solve crisis situations. It’s crucial to have these groups of people in emergency situations because the genuine nature of care are major motivators that cause humans to help each other out instead of helping themselves.

The case study on Spellman Gardens discusses the small business of Jean and John Spellman, two former bankers who started their own company following the 2008 credit financial crisis. Their business sold seeds and gardening tools to people who were looking to grow some of their own food in a tough economy, and it took off like wildfire. The dilemma arose when the Spellmans considered hiring many more people to help fill orders faster, even though they wanted to keep it a small family business. In my personal opinion, since they value family and a close-knit company, they can hire more people while still maintaining these norms. It’s necessary with the growth of their company to hire more employees so that they don’t get a negative reputation of filling orders slowly, but they don’t have to hire so many random employees who aren’t close to the business. In order to do this, the Spellmans needs to encourage a fluid and effective model of company policies and team building to foster a dynamic and flexible family. This supportive climate will not only mean success financially, but also be successful in maintaining their team-based values. By continuing their family feel and values of a small business while also meeting their customers’ needs, I think that the Spellmans will be very successful in the future.

In How Intangible Corporate Culture Creates Tangible Profits by David Lapin for Fast Company, Lapin talks about organizational culture and how it constantly develops (whether you want it to or not). Conflict in the workplace, if left unresolved, can become “cancerous” and hinder “the free flow of information.” He discusses how tangibles and intangibles are often interchangeable, and both can make money for a company. Lapin uses Southwest Airlines as an example; by eliminating frills such as assigned seating, focusing on things such as customer service, and applying their intangibles to their flights, they grew exponentially. This tactic has been applied by other companies, proving that even learning the values and wants of people can improve business and make money.

I think that it is possible to “manufacture” a particular organizational culture, though it develops and changes whether you want it to or not. It’s important as a company to learn what your employees and customers value so that you can accommodate and better serve them to create the perfect business environment, but the culture may shift if you’re not careful. By manufacturing the organizational culture per se, you can actually become that culture since we are products of our environments. In order to do so, you must completely develop those attitudes and aspects of culture that are important, changing the climate of your organization and the values associated with it.

Works Cited

Eisenberg, E.M., Goodall, H.L., Jr., & Trethewey, A. Organizational Communication: Balancing Creativity and 
     Constraint (6th Edition). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s. 2010.

Lapin, David. How Intangible Corporate Culture Creates Tangible Profits. “Fast Company.” Mansueto Ventures, 
     LLC. 2013.

Lewin, Roger and Birute Regine. Weaving Complexity and Business: Engaging the Soul at Work. Texere LLC 
     Publishing: New York, NY. 2000-2001. Print.

Matuson, Roberta. Conflict in the Workplace: Why Can’t We Just Put Everyone in Time Out? “Fast Company.” 
     Mansueto Ventures, LLC. 2013.