How to Navigate Organizational Culture for Product Managers
Understanding your organisations culture (personality) and climate (mood) will allow you to better influence and affect successful product change
If you want to implement change, launch a new product, implement a new system, switch to a new platform, you need to understand your organisation’s personality and current mood.
Culture is the personality; Climate is the mood
These two key elements, culture and climate, distinctly shape the organizational landscape. Often used interchangeably, these dimensions represent the enduring essence (culture) and immediate atmosphere (climate), respectively. Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner's onion-like layers offer a profound metaphor to understand organizational culture.
Understand these layers of culture to be able to navigate and influence your organisation successfully!
Culture: The Personality
Personality rarely changes. We are who we are. The way we do things around here is a phrase you may have heard in your organisation. But Culture is split into three layers and not all are immediately visible.
Layer 1: The Visible Artifacts
At its core, culture is the established system of accepted behaviors, values, beliefs, and assumptions that form the bedrock of an organisation. It operates like an invisible force, shaping interactions and decisions without conscious acknowledgment. The outer layer of culture is akin to the visible artifacts surrounding the workplace, reflecting the organization's identity.
Google's innovative culture is exemplified in its open, vibrant offices, symbolizing a commitment to creativity and collaboration.
Other visible artifacts may be the artwork on the wall in the foyer, the fruit basket in the kitchen that arrives on a Monday morning, whether there are corner officers that mean status or plants around the office.
Look around your office and note the visible artifacts of your organisation’s culture.
Layer 2: Norms and Values
Delving deeper, culture extends to the shared norms and values guiding organizational behavior. It is the unwritten code that defines what is right and wrong within the organization. These principles find formal expression in handbooks, policies, and organizational principles, encapsulating the established system.
Amazon's guiding principles reflect its cultural norms, providing a framework that reinforces customer obsession, frugality and long-term thinking.
These are the values of your organization written on the company website, the policies around parental leave, working from home or the unwritten norms like what time people get into the office or leave, whether they eat lunch at their desks or out.
Layer 3: Basic Assumptions
The deepest layer harbours basic assumptions, rarely articulated but profoundly shaping the organizational ethos. These assumptions underpin the norms and values, representing deeply ingrained beliefs that influence individual perceptions and relationships within the organization.
The unspoken commitment to equality shapes many organizational cultures, fostering environments where diversity and inclusion, like at Salesforce, are foundational.
Other basic assumptions include not drinking alcohol at your office desk, not going into work in pyjamas or a basic expectation of equal pay.
Creating Culture: The Dynamics
Culture is not a static entity; it is a product of collective actions, decisions, and behaviors. Leadership, employees, and organizational practices contribute significantly to its formation and evolution.
Leadership Influence
Leadership serves as the architects of both visible and invisible aspects of culture. The values and behaviors exhibited by leaders set the tone for the entire organization. As Edgar Schein, in his book Organizational Culture and Leadership, aptly stated,
"The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture. If you don’t manage culture, it manages you."
Employee Contribution
While leadership provides the blueprint, employees actively contribute to the canvas of culture through daily interactions, collaboration, and adherence to established norms. Margaret Mead's words resonate:
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
Organizational Practices
Practices, policies, and rituals act as reinforcing agents of culture. Regardless of strategy, it's the prevailing culture, as emphasized by Peter Drucker, that ultimately shapes an organization's success or failure.
Climate: The Immediate Atmosphere
While Culture is the established system or the personality, Climate is the mood. Climate is the more changeable and responsive dimension, influenced by current feelings and perceptions.
Adaptability in Climate
Organizational climate responds more immediately to changes. Influenced by leadership styles, team dynamics, and external events, it can either enhance employee morale and productivity or lead to disengagement and reduced performance.
Employee Perception
Unlike the shared nature of culture, climate's perception is subjective and varies among stakeholders. The alignment of individual and collective perceptions contributes to the overall organizational climate.
Shaping Culture: Behaviors, Symbols, and Systems
In 2005, Carolyn Taylor provided a profound insight into the mechanisms through which culture is molded and messages are communicated within organizations. Three pillars stand out in this cultural framework: Behaviors, Symbols, and Systems.
1. Behaviors: The Manifestation of Culture
Behaviors are the tangible expressions of an organization's culture, and they often stem from the top-down. Leaders play a pivotal role in shaping culture through their actions. Carolyn Taylor aptly highlighted the link between leaders' behaviors and the resultant culture. For instance -
Humility and Learning
A leader's willingness to admit mistakes fosters openness and a culture of continuous learning. When leaders embrace humility, it sends a powerful message that acknowledges imperfection and encourages a growth mindset.
A study published in ScienceDirect on authenticity and leadership in 2020 found that relationships between “followers” and “leaders” are weakened when a leader’s humility decreases. In our quest for approval, we may be inauthentic in our behaviour and as leaders are an important source of social approval for employees, their behaviour needs to be aligned with their genuine self (authentic).
“Leaders have the capacity to decrease follower feelings of vulnerability, allowing them to feel more comfortable in expressing their true selves,” the research states. “Leader humility, depending on the degree to which it is authentic, indirectly affects follower felt authenticity through follower vulnerability.”
Accountability
Asking for commitments and following up establishes a culture of accountability. When leaders prioritize commitments, it trickles down through the organization, creating a sense of responsibility and ownership among employees.
A recent study by the University of British Columbia, looking at 35,000 CEO conference calls with investors over 12 years, found that when CEOs admit their mistakes, take responsibility for their actions, it positively impacts the company’s value. When a company performed poorly and the CEO attributed the performance to external factors, analysts' forecasts were notably lower than when CEOs took responsibility.
Favoritism and Politics
Conversely, if favoritism is not based on performance, it can lead to a toxic political culture. Unfair practices breed resentment and erode trust, creating a divisive and counterproductive work environment.
At Enron, leaders' behaviors, driven by a focus on financial gains at any cost, contributed to a toxic culture that ultimately led to one of the most infamous corporate scandals in history.
2. Symbols: Patterns of Meaning
Symbols are the threads that weave together events into a larger pattern, providing meaning and context. Leaders make choices about the use of time and resource allocation, creating symbols that guide organizational culture. This includes -
Rituals
These are patterns of expected behavior that contribute to a relational culture. For instance, mid-morning coffee runs can emphasize a company's commitment to fostering relationships and informal communication.
Storytelling
Narratives about defining moments in an organization's history, heroes, and villains become symbolic touchpoints that shape culture. The stories leaders choose to tell define the values and priorities of the organization.
The story of college drop outs starting google in a garage is infamous with start up culture. The recent leadership dramas at OpenAI will become a story for boards and tech companies everywhere. The magical origin story of Amazon, originally called Cadabra at the inflection point of tech where the internet make so many things possible.
3. Systems: The Infrastructure of Culture
Systems are the structural and procedural mechanisms that control, plan, measure, and reward within an organization. They provide the scaffolding upon which cultural behaviors and symbols are built. Examples include -
Organizational Structure
The ease of access to senior-level individuals reflects the openness and transparency within an organization. A flat hierarchy may signal a culture that values collaboration and inclusivity.
HR and Performance Management Systems
The platforms and processes used for HR and performance management play a crucial role in shaping culture. Tools like Culture Amp or Employment Hero influence how feedback, recognition, and performance are managed.
Customer Processes
The way an organization interacts with its customers is a systemic representation of its culture. Customer-centric processes demonstrate a commitment to delivering on promises and prioritizing client needs.
Zappos, known for its commitment to customer service, has a system where employees are empowered to go above and beyond to satisfy customers, reflecting a cultural emphasis on customer satisfaction.
Navigating organisational dynamics requires transparency. Taking the inferred or implied, observing the organisational behaviours through the three layers of the culture onion, allow us to understand how things work around here. By knowing the rhythm your organisation dances to, product managers and leaders can influence behaviour to support strategic product initiatives.
Need help with navigating and influencing within your Organisation’s culture to get support for your strategic product initiatives? Drop me an email at irene@phronesisadvisory.com