Thursday, July 31, 2008

Corporate culture

Corporate culture - I didn't have to pay attention to that! I love learning new things, being exposed to new ideas. It gives me a fantastic high. Also, I feel really silly when I know of things but haven't given them enough thought or credit and find out just how potentially big they can be. Fortunately the high quotient outweighs the silly quotient and after my class on corporate culture I was fueled enough to start attempting to sensitize myself to corporate culture.

I feel trying to understand corporate culture seems to be more of a pro-active approach to better understand your target organization. This lets you decide where you'd like to be (to avoid a timshel situation - i.e. a maybe, maybe not kind of situation) and not have situations decide for you.
(As a rider to this, I do believe that once you make your choice, no matter how big it is, you will find a way to provided you're engaged enough)

What I also realized was that culture first crosses my mind if I were to think of a society or a country or a tribe. Today, there was a broadening of my ‘culture understanding’ horizon to apply the culture context to an organization. And the potential benefits I see are immense. Sure it may be difficult at first and maybe I’d be completely off but once I’m able to figure things out, identifying corporate culture seems beneficial. For example, if I wanted to switch jobs and know my set of values, I’d obviously see where I’d fit in best. Don’t you think recruiting people would also become simpler? And if I were to have my own set-up, won’t knowing my values would be critical in shaping the set-up culture? (at least till such a time that it works!)

That’s the idealistic scenario. It still remains to be seen whether with this understanding I will be able to better get an idea of a company closest to the truth. What I would like to be able to identify in the shortest time possible is to figure out the corporate culture without having to be a part of the organization. Is there another way to do that besides surveying those in the organization? And how much time will I spend in understanding cultures? When I know either ways, I’ll have a sequel post.

6 comments:

dupdudup said...

Good going, nice read !
Looking forward to the sequel ;)

Prof Junbo said...

Understanding culture (in a broad sense) should help us when we find ourselves immersed in one later on. It might help explain why people do the things they do in one company and do it differently in another company. Knowing your values will help you decide if you are willing to do those things that way.

Anonymous said...

The corporate culture of a company
is not hard to figure out
you just need to look at their buildings, their carpets, talk to the employees
and the kind of coffee maching they have for their employees is a very important sign of how they treat their employees.(anything below an espresso u woudnlt wanna work there)

STN said...

to Simmer....

Most of the time buildings don't tell the full story. When you see the list of Great Place to Work list of 25 best companies to work with you will find that most of the companies don't have a swank building and a 5-star like reception yet people are happy there. I wonder if the coffee has to do anything with happiness and culture at workplace.

Anonymous said...

hahah
u wouldnt wanna go to a doctor whos office plants are dying would you??
and you woudnt wanna work in a place where they spend more money on their CEOS yacht then giving u a decent table and chair to work in;;;AND YES AN N'ESPRESSO MACHINE MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE!!!

STN said...

I am going to a doctor to take some service and pay some money
so quality would be a concern obviously.
sometimes the best of 5 star hospitals are not known for
best of treatments and service to patients.


Talking about corporate and culture, people die to work for start-up
where u get high by the quality of work and not by caffeine
where there is a challenge and learning everyday( espresso coffee machine is optional)
and you know what are you doing,
unlike big hierarchical mncs where there are 2 coffee machines at each floor
but you get lost to search that elusive culture.
( examples on request)

sorry top say but your notion of a good work/corporate culture is limited.
you judge it only by ambiance and good looks.