The Expert Podcast

So if you are a business owner manager or employee you have certainly heard the phrase corporate culture every company wants to have a corporate culture sometimes it's backed up by a mission statement so if you're an employee how do you feel about this do you feel good about being part of a corporate culture as an employer manager or owner a lot of times you think this is going to be good we're going to have a culture well I'm here to tell you that corporate culture the way it's used now is probably bad for everybody bad for the company and it's bad for the employee.
The reason why is because you're trying to force a culture onto other people look everybody already has their own culture everybody has their own personality each employee is an individual person they're all different from one another they may have some shared goals shared values but each person is different and if you try to make one homogeneous corporate culture you're now going to be having two jobs as a manager first of all getting that employee to do their job second of all to force them to adhere to some culture.
The most famous of corporate cultures was back in the 80s at IBM you have to wear blue suit red tie white shirt everybody in the company did that it was kind of an Unwritten rule wasn't in a manual but that was like the accepted dress and became a joke because nobody can have their own identity their own style their own way of doing things and while it might make it easy for managers to keep everything structured and rigid it doesn't let people Express themselves in their own way or even do their job in their own way everybody has ideas and creativity that they can bring to a role in a company and if you force a corporate culture on everybody it kind of boundaries people keeps people hemmed in where they can't do their own thing or even bring new ideas into a workplace.
If you're an employee part of this responsibility is on you be individual be your own person have your own personality but contribute to the good of the organization you might think well I'm just going to be my own person and I'm just here for a paycheck well in the same way that in other groups you're a member of a family a sports team you contribute to that look at your efforts as contributing to the overall good of the company you don't have to adhere to any corporate culture and be part of a look at the first four words the first four letters of culture is cult right A lot of times a culture borderlines on a cult where you can't do things differently.
But on the other hand don't be resentful that your company's making money or that there's bosses that make money the reason for it is because that's what the purpose of that company is the more successful that company can be in theory the more secure your job is the more income you might be able to get sure you might say the company makes more money than me and it's not fair because they're I'm doing all the work they're making the money that may be true but I can guarantee this if you're not contributing in a way that the company sees value the first time that profits go down sales go down they're going to look at well how do we cut costs the biggest cost of most companies is payroll so use the fact that you're an individual and you're your own person to make your own mark on the company but do take pride in the company.
Because if you don't you might you might feel good about the idea of quiet quitting and just being your own person but eventually that's not going to work out in the long run this whole quiet quitting thing is going to put a lot of people in a tough spot with income where companies are going to look for automation or overseas to replace employees whether you agree with it or not that's just what's going to happen if you are an employee of a company that has a forced corporate culture have a conversation with your direct reports and your colleagues about how individual personalities can be more presented in a company.
A lot of times the company has a mission statement that says we stand for positive values everybody well guess what a lot of times that mission statement is there just to Varnish over bad stuff they do it's to say one thing and do something else so get rid of all the corporate cultures mission statements mottos slogans because look you're either a good company or you're not you either do good things or you don't certainly every group of people companies sports teams government agencies families do mostly good things and sometimes they make mistakes they do bad things so you can't say that our mission is to always do the right thing that's not going to happen you're sometimes going to make mistakes.
And if you have a mission statement or a culture that pretends to be something it's not it obliterates all credibility and honesty that that company says about anything else if your mission statement says we do the right thing all the time always do good things well if everybody knows that's not true and it's an exaggeration then what credibility does any other fact statement that comes from the company have nothing.
So corporate culture is something that seems like a good idea trying to get everybody on the same page you've heard the phrase get everybody on the same team well you're already on the team you work at the company you're on the team what they're really trying to do is get you to conform to things that make it easy to manage you rather than having to do the work to have you see the value in doing it to do the work to enable you as an employee to do things and management is hard work that's why managers get paid more money it's very hard work don't make any mistake about that.
But what they're trying to do is be lazy about that work to say here's a slogan here's a culture here's a mission statement that automatically makes everything better and they don't have to do the work in developing people in in encouraging and enlisting support from people that's hard work if you're not willing to do the hard work sometimes you can throw a slogan out there and expect that's going to do it automatically it's not so if you're an employee put the work in to contribute to your company but expect hard work from your superiors to help enable you to contribute to the company in a positive way.