Barriers to Seeing Company Culture

Photo by Wes Hicks on Unsplash

Using the analogy of the night sky, we’ve been talking about company culture and how this ever present and influential force is so often ignored or obscured from view.

If company culture is so critical to the health of a company, shaping how people interact, how decisions are made, and how success is defined, why does it continually go unnoticed?

Just as light pollution washes out the night sky, certain distractions and habits can mask the role that company culture plays. Here are some common examples:

Familiarity: It’s easy to tune out what we see day in and day out. Behaviors, perspectives and attitudes become routine and seemingly vanish from view. We assume it’s just the way things are and we don’t stop to question if, and how, they could be different.

Your Position as a Leader: Employees interact with you based on your position, and no one wants to look bad in front of their boss. This means they will be on their best behavior when you’re in the room. Any grousing and complaining that happens will be out of your earshot. This limits your ability to get a true pulse on company culture, particularly if dissenting views are discouraged.

The Daily Hustle and Bustle: As leaders, there is a lot that needs our attention. It’s hard to keep culture top of mind as compared to more objective factors like objectives, deliverables, and profit margins. Cultural issues, in comparison, can feel like a low priority even though they are constantly at work in the background.

The Veil of Success: Even when a company is financially successful and meeting its objectives, cultural issues can quietly simmer beneath the surface. It’s easy to equate strong performance with overall health, but success can sometimes conceal fractures within the organization. Left unexamined, these hidden issues can gradually undermine those achievements.

Delegating to HR: There can be a tendency for leaders to unconsciously assume that all matters related to culture will be handled by the Human Resources department. In fact, culture is shaped by every leader's behaviors, decisions, and communication and must be actively promoted by leadership.

In our next blog, we’ll explore practical ways to uncover and address the cultural forces in your organization.

In the meantime, we invite you to reflect:

How much attention are you giving to the cultural forces shaping your organization?

What are the habits, dynamics, assumptions or distractions that could be keeping you from seeing culture’s true impact?