Whilst people undoubtedly recognise the importance of Organisational Culture, it’s all too easy for it to slip down the agenda until something starts going ‘wrong’ or not working as it should in some respect or other.
For us, probably the best exponent of why culture is a critical contribution to organisational success is Dr Norman Chorn.
Whilst there is a great deal more to his work, in a nutshell what Chorn argues is that culture counts because ‘the way we do things around here’ creates, drives and determines strategic capability’. The key though is alignment – is that way of doing things supporting our strategy and enabling delivery of key goals and drivers or is it inhibiting success and getting in the way?
Culture therefore can’t just be ‘fixed’ in some generalised sense of ‘good’ or ‘desirable’ competencies, what really counts is Context – how is it the organisation needs to be in the way it does things to be successful? Bill Taylor, in his Harvard Business Review article of June 1st 2017 writes that ‘so much thinking about organisational culture has become so bland…that it is on the verge of becoming meaningless’ Taylor cites a number of questions he contends we should ask about our organisational culture one of which resonated powerfully for us – ‘is your culture built for learning as well as performance?’
On countless fronts managers are contending with new and differing demands from multiple perspectives and have to be equipped to deal with them. This necessitates therefore both Horizontal and Vertical development. Horizontal Development to provide the requisite skills to lead successfully, but also Vertical Development to provide the insight, systems outlook and complexity of ‘Sense Making’ to function effectively in today’s increasingly demanding and VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) context.
Such development is critical because fundamentally what determines the ‘way we do things around here’, as the Chorn model illustrates, is what leaders throughout our organisations are actually doing in the way that they lead and manage others. The question therefore remains; to what extent are the leaders throughout the organisation Conscious, Skilful and Purposeful in modelling and deploying those behaviours and competencies supporting organisational success that you want them to.
(If you would like to know more about how Prescience has supported various organisations in developing leadership capability aligned to the organisation’s key goals and deliverables please contact us at info@prescience.eu.com).
