Five things you need to know about Organisation Culture

1. What is Organisational Culture:

In simple terms, Organisational Culture is the way in which people in an organisation relate to each other, their work and the outside world, in comparison with other organisations. Your Organisational Culture shows how your organisation works: how things get done, the interactions between people, and employee relationships to their work and the outside world.

• Why is it crucial for your organisation:

Organisational Culture determines how and if you are reaching your goals or key performance indicators (KPIs), so, it’s crucial to ensure that your way of working supports what you want to achieve, rather than hinders it. By shaping an Organisational Culture that fits your needs, you will be positioning the organisation to be able to reach these goals. 

• There is no one best Organisational Culture to aim for:

There’s no one template for organisational culture. The best Organisational Culture is always contextual. The best Organisational Culture your organisation should aim for should be a culture that best supports your strategy. If you’re an up-and-coming start-up you will need a very different strategy than an already established international organisation. Also, expect that your optimal culture will probably change over time. Bigger organisations tend to operate in different contexts and face different requirements and restrictions and, therefore, one day there may be a need for more structure and processes.

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• What are the different types of Organisational Culture?

We divide Organisational Culture into four different themes:

Optimal culture: one size doesn’t fit all. It’s never a good idea to try to apply the culture of another organisation as the optimal culture for yours. Optimal culture is the organisational culture that best supports your organisation’s strategy in order to be successful. It is crucial to keep in mind that optimal culture should always be tailored for each organisation, or function of an organisation.

Actual culture: is the culture your organisation or department currently has and should be the basis for all Organisational Culture change projects. In order to guarantee accuracy and objectivity, actual culture should be measured using a valid and objective method, such as our Multi-Focus Model^TM on Organisational Culture that thousands of global organisations have relied on for shaping their culture, since 1985.  

Perceived culture: the culture people in the organisation think it has. It is also the culture you think your organisation has. You can get more insight into the perceived culture by asking others and this might change your perception of your organisation’s culture. Implementing changes based on perceived culture alone, without measuring the actual culture, is one of the reasons why many Organisational Culture change projects fail.

Ideal work environment: is measured exactly the same way as actual culture, except that instead of asking questions about the current work environment, the respondents describe the Organisational Culture they would love to have. Measuring the Ideal work environment gives valuable information about the preferences of the people working in the organisation.

• Your organisational culture can enable or hinder your strategy.

Our Research-backed Multi-Focus Model on Organisational Culture is a strategic tool aimed at helping organisations to have a functional culture. It consists of six dimensions:

D1     Means-oriented vs. goal-oriented
D2     Internally driven vs. externally driven
D3     Easy-going work discipline vs. strict work discipline
D4     Local vs. professional
D5     Open system vs. closed system
D6     Employee-oriented vs. work-oriented

Learn more about the organisational culture model 

Set a meeting with one of our consultants to discuss the challenges faced by your organisation and practical steps to align your Culture and Strategy.

Based on the results of your Organisational culture scans we can help you go through:

Mergers and Acquisitions are commonplace in modern global business. However, organisational culture is often overlooked in M&A processes despite it being a crucial element to success.

Change management (CM): focuses on how people and teams are affected by the organisational transition. Organisational culture plays a significant role in change management. Organisations with highly engaged employees and open and effective internal communication are more likely to succeed in their change management initiatives. We help you to:

• Measure your organisational culture and define your optimal culture
• Shape your organisational culture
• Understand how your organisation culture helps or hinders you to implement your new strategy/new performance management/IT/HR system
• Understand the importance of the role of your leadership team in organisational change.
• Plan and implement change by working closely with you throughout the process (Change Levers) so that the process of change is as effective and streamlined as possible.

Organisational Culture Consulting:

We offer you a structured approach to measure, understand and shape your Organisational Culture. Our approach is based on data.

Our effective 5-step consulting process:

Read more about our approach to Organisational Culture 

Reach out to us to discuss the challenges faced by your organisation and practical steps to align your Culture and Strategy.