What is company culture?
Many people have different sayings about company culture. Some say they should describe it as a set of standards and attitudes that members of an organization internalize. Some say it means the beliefs and purposes that people working for the same business have in common. Also, some can define the company culture as the benefits and perks of being a member of a community. The definitions may vary, but we can say that all these expressions lack when we try to explain what company culture is.
We can define company culture as a mix of the interactions of individuals within the organization and the people’s adaptability to changes, as HBR says. We relate it to people within the organization, rather than how an organization treats these people.
Why is it important?
Company culture is the most vital thing for building an identity and sustainable growth for your business. It is the core of implementing your company’s business strategies and visions.
When you define your company’s mission, vision, values, and eventually its culture, your exact aim is to build a team that is committed to the same purpose and ideals as yours. That is a tremendous ROI for every business, and this is a hint that Human Resources is the key to building a stable business and keeping it alive.
Developing a Company Culture
Many factors can influence company culture. Although, you must first define your mission, which is your business’ aim besides financial profit; vision, which is a projection of your long-term accomplishments; and values, the guiding principles of your company.
The mission and vision explain many things about your business. But people in your organization cannot internalize these statements. To create something that your organization share, here comes the value of your business, the fundamental beliefs you share on how people should act and be treated. The value definition is the core of developing a solid company culture.
By explanation, when your values are clear, your business decisions are straightforward. Developing a company culture is a painful and time-consuming job. It requires a lot of work, education, and learning. Values should not be too generic so that representatives of your company should live it every day with no force, not just your CEO. The values must be distinguished, and they can outlive you. You can sacrifice profits for achieving and protecting that value.
The value of your company defines what type of company culture your company has. When you know the company culture type, you can build a team around your culture and hire for your values. Therefore, you can achieve sustainable growth for your company.
The Company Culture Types Framework
We represent the company culture types concerning how people interact with each other, their level of independence or interdependence; and how people in the organization respond to changes, their level of flexibility and stability by Boris Groysberg, Jeremiah Lee, Jesse Price, and Yo-Jud Cheng.
Here are the eight company culture types you should position your company culture in:
Types of Company Culture
-
Caring
The companies with having caring culture are warm, collaborating, and welcoming. They encourage its people to share their skill-sets. The Caring Culture relies on good relationships and mutual trust among people and growing together.
The Walt Disney Company is a splendid example of caring culture. It encourages its members not to surrender to fear inside the organization.
-
Purpose
Purpose-oriented cultures have a united focus on altruism and the well-being of an organization for reaching out the best result. Their members are collectively contributing to the greater good. The culture is tolerant, compassionate, and highly flexible to achieve the company’s mission in the shortest period.
The pharmaceutical company Roche is a suitable example of a purpose-driven culture. It aims to achieve the best result, the best potential product for the benefit of a vaster community.
-
Learning
The learning company culture type gives high importance to the development of their members. It believes the growth of the company lies under growing each member better every day. The innovation, exploration, and creativity is the key to achieve company’s vision. The culture encourages curiosity, trial and error method, brainstorming among organizations.
Tesla is an exceptional example of a learning culture type. Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, built the company on learning on the way. Innovation and technology lead it.
-
Enjoyment
The enjoyment culture type has an upbeat and spirited approach. Not just the employees, but also the management has high morale and an excellent sense of humor. These types of companies have a playful business setting, higher employee engagement, and high independence level.
Google is a superb example for enjoyment with its playful insider products and its offices designed for various activities.
-
Results
A company that has a result-oriented culture evaluates its success with higher employee performance and the best attainable outcome. The people are highly independent in the organization. They put a tremendous weight on succeeding.
GSK is a marvelous example of result-oriented company culture. The former CEO expresses their aim of achieving modernity and keeping the team focus on their strategy for this specific awaited result.
-
Authority
Authority culture type is about strong leadership. The highest value in this type of culture lies under courage and dominancy. The people in the organization are obeying strict control mechanisms and led by authoritative leadership.
Huawei is an example of authority-oriented culture. Ren Zhengfei, the CEO of Huawei states: Huawei has great aggression to win and sees the market as a battlefield.
-
Safety
Safety-centered companies are perfect risk-avoiders. They build a stable organization to keep their plans on track. They don’t move their tasks away from their long-term commitments. They always prepare for the future, and they act with caution and a realistic approach.
A banking or insurance company is an excellent example of a safety culture. Since the risk is always too high and these institutions perfectly established themselves after an extended period, they seek to keep their credibility.
-
Order
The core of this culture type is upon order and structure. The reward method in these types of organizations is basically how the people are sticking to the regulations. The interdependence level is high, and the adaptability to the changes is on average level. The flexibility within company decisions is reliant on the company’s lead itself.
Government organizations are good examples of order culture types with their strict rule sets and implementations.
Of course, it is not possible to adapt to just one culture type. However, the company culture framework is a good visualization for explaining your company culture. The important thing here is perfectly analyzing your companies’ values and allocating your company culture to the company culture types framework at the right point.
