ORGANIZATION CULTURE AND THE BOTTOM LINE

When we speak about environment in this context, what we are talking about is the culture of an organization. Culture sums up what we believe and what we disavow, what we cherish and what we scorn, what we say and what we do not say, what we do and what we do not do. In short, culture is "how things are done around here." It's how we act, or not. Every organization has a culture, often an amalgam of many subcultures, each subculture being driven by its own history, needs, motivation, successes, and failures. The ties interconnecting the subcultures resemble a plate of spaghetti flung across a slippery kitchen floor. Links emerge, shift, dissipate, re-form, go underground, erupt, waste away, and die. Both intersubculture and intra-subculture channels are dug, blocked, deepened, circumvented, dredged, and filled. More important, the human energy that flows along these ethereal canals often jumps channel and slices a new pathway to an adjoining conduit. Subcultures make strange bedfellows. Indeed, it seems somehow beyond comprehension that people ever thought that a management team could—at least, for long—guide such an organic system in a "scientific" manner. Ironically, some company cultures ordain that people not speak openly about the organization's culture. A culture of denial is still a culture. Some company cultures forbid use of the word culture, preferring instead presumably less offensive substitutes such as work environment or organization climate. A culture of obfuscation is still a culture.

Paradoxically, a culture both shapes what people think, feel, say, and do and is shaped by what people think, feel, say, and do. Culture is a self-reinforcing system. And … culture rules. Why is this? Life seems to be wired to culture. While we once thought that culture and learning were the sole domains of Homo sapiens sapiens, modern behavioral research suggests that animals great and small also have cultures, and testing demonstrates how culture is handed down from generation to generation in the animal kingdom. Can we humans be that different? We don't think so—because culture sets the ground rules for how the members of an organization should behave. And those who do not comply are reviled, mistreated, or cast out. An organization's culture thus has a saturating impact on its members. If the culture is grounded in trust, creativity, and mutual benefit, chances are the organization itself is prospering or in the process of adapting to get back on track. If the culture is closed, fearful, and based on win-lose outcomes, chances are it is in, or on the brink of, a death spiral.

Lee Dugatkin (2001), associate professor of biology at the University of Louisville, and Frans B. M. de Waal (2001), professor of primate behavior at Emory University in Atlanta, have reported on the growing body of evidence indicating that animals, like human beings, both learn from each other and pass that learning on to others. Sow black bears teach their cubs how to climb, hunt, and forage. Raccoons teach their kits how to wash food. Dolphins teach their calves how to gang up on sharks. The formal term to describe this dynamic is cultural transmission. If we use the definition of culture found in Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (1974), "the integrated pattern of human behavior that includes thought, speech, action, and artifacts and depends upon man's capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations" (5a), people also engage in cultural transmission. Anthropologists have long reported on how the practices of so-called primitive tribes persist long after the reasons for those customs have vanished into mythology. Druidic fertility celebrations survive as May Day merriments. Leather pouches filled with medicinal herbs show up to today in a wide array of "good luck" charms: a rabbit's foot tucked away in a pocket, a religious icon hung around the neck, or wind chimes hanging on the front porch. Ancient sacrifices and libations are reenacted every time a child tosses a penny into a wishing well. These practices serve as cultural symbols of good luck, success, and prosperity. Culturally, we are told that if we do these things, we will be safe, we will succeed. And these cultural messages are reinforced by the most powerful of motivations. We want to be accepted and loved within our culture, and we want to succeed. We see others engage in the activity and we want to do it, too.

Dugatkin tells the story of guppies and how they do what they see other guppies doing regardless of how they may be hard-wired to react. Habitually, it seems, female guppies tend to want to mate with bright orange male guppies. This preference is a genetic thing. In an experiment to see if female guppies would change their fondness for bright orange male guppies, Dugatkin arranged it so that female guppies could view both bright orange and dull-colored guppies at the same time. But with a trick using opaque and see-through dividers, the females saw what appeared to be other females selecting dull-colored guppies. What happened next surprised the researcher. Female guppies viewing other females selecting dull-colored males began to do the same, overriding their hard-wired instinct to mate with the bright orange males. This phenomenon is known as "date copying." It seems that among the mating rituals of American university students, if one popular and good-looking student dates a certain type of person, others want to date that type, too. Marketers have exploited variations of date copying for years by showing happy, good-looking people using their products, knowing that you, too, will want to use them. Be like a hero athlete by using the brand of deodorant she applies with a captivating smile.

In organization culture, anyone who has witnessed elaborate management rituals knows about cultural transmission. IBM is not known as "Big Blue" because of the color of its corporate logo or the boxes the computers are housed in. No, the name comes from the respectable color of the suit to be worn by IBM's managers as mandated by Thomas J. Watson, Sr., and continued by his son. Wear a blue suit and you will be loved, dated, and succeed. What formidable messages culture transmits. Culture can override instincts, intellect, and even values. The key implication, of course, is that if an organization's leaders see the value of rewiring their company with a partnering culture, then they themselves must initiate smart partnering behaviors. If you shout "red suit" but continue to wear blue suits, people will wear blue suits. Leaders not prepared to risk failure by trying smart partnering behaviors must be confronted promptly, given a choice and a chance, and then replaced if they continue to display divisive behaviors.

Bottom-Line Business Results Rooted in Culture

How executives, managers, and employees regard shareholders, how they treat customers, and how they esteem each other all echo cultural prescripts. How the members of an organization go about determining what kind of culture they need to accelerate company growth is itself a cultural gauntlet. The ability to recognize strengths and acknowledge weaknesses is a cultural issue. Some cultures rot, emaciated by the omnivorous microbes of denial, fear, dishonesty, and delusion. Other cultures prosper, invigorated by the irrepressible catalysts of creativity, risk taking, integrity, and self-evaluation. Most often, cultures are paradoxical systems containing both productive and counterproductive characteristics. Regardless of an organization's cultural traits, the ethereal energies they drive in the people who live and work within the structure will foretell their success or failure.