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By JoAnn Meyer, Fredrikson Human Resources Consulting

Organizational culture is admittedly a "squishy" term. This is because it is such a rich and potentially useful concept. Much has already been written on "why" organizational culture is so important. Company leaders are often featured in prominent business publications on how they transformed their company's culture. What senior leaders and organizational effectiveness professionals often need in addition is a practical approach to measuring and managing culture. This column will describe a proven approach to managing culture by focusing on one of its dimensions, work environment.

Organizational Culture and Work Environment

A common definition of "organizational culture" is a pattern of beliefs, values, and norms. Organizational culture is largely hidden, and is an underlying component of an organization that affects all of its operations.

Most organizations don't explicitly describe and document their underlying cultural beliefs, values and norms. This is because:

A. The cultural beliefs, values and norms are usually quite subtle; and
B. To unearth them would take a lot of time and energy that rarely generates sufficient ROI to warrant the effort.

A dimension of culture is the work environment. It is a tangible representation that most of us readily can describe, and to which we usually have strong reactions, either negative or positive. For practitioners of organizational effectiveness and senior leaders, focusing on the work environment is a great place to start managing organizational culture.

How Does One Begin?

In our work with small to medium-sized businesses, we have found most business owners recognize the importance of managing their work environment. There are a host of reasons to do so: Increased productivity, client satisfaction, employee retention, a favorable public image, and minimizing legal liability lead the list. So the issue often is not "Why" but "How?"
A five-step process is helpful in answering this question. The steps are:

1. Develop a description of the ideal work environment. Focus groups, employee interviews, and surveys can provide information to paint the picture. It will often consist of five-to-seven distinct descriptors, such as "energetic," "responsive," "innovative," "reliable," or "collaborative." These descriptions should not only reflect how employees and managers view the organization as a place to work, but also how you want your customers to experience doing business with you.

2. Identify the gaps between today's reality and tomorrow's ideal world. Ask different groups of employees these types of questions:
n "How is today different from the ideal work environment way of the ideal world we've just described?"
n "Why isn't our ideal work environment here today?"
The answers will usually demonstrate a high degree of consistency, and themes
will emerge with a clarified description of the obstacle(s).

3. Engage in problem-solving and action planning to narrow or close the gaps. Once you've identified the causes of the gaps, ask the different groups of employees about ways to eliminate or reduce them. Don't limit your ideas just yet; brainstorm to come up with a variety of options. Then, develop action plans with employee input and as much ownership of task items as is possible. Be sure that organizational leadership takes accountability for appropriate tasks as well.

4. Implement and monitor the action plans. This sounds easier than it is, because the organization will likely need to prioritize its efforts. Hopefully the business plan or strategies provide some criteria that can determine where finite energies and resources should be allocated. Monitoring takes several forms, such as organizational culture surveys (easily administered through the Internet), quarterly status discussions with senior leadership, and disciplined attention to the action items throughout the organization.

5. Communicate throughout the organization. The impact of the above four steps is maximized with a solid communications plan in place. This plan identifies how the organization will be kept apprised of progress, which in turn will reinforce the importance of maintaining disciplined attention. The plan should address how to communicate what to whom, and should integrate into the existing formal or informal communications channels. Take the temperature of your work environment periodically, using Internet-based employee surveys or other methods, and report on key indicators.

Summary

Organizational culture may be tough to define, but employees can describe how they feel about it, and the organization as well. They perceive culture largely through their experience in the work environment. Your company's customers will feel your culture as well. This is because, intentionally or not, employees project their experiences in the workplace on to their experiences in dealing with customers. For these reasons, focusing on the work environment is an important and practical method of working with organizational culture, and ultimately increasingly organizational effectiveness.