5 Minute Read…
I’ve been thinking and writing a lot about culture. Culture might be the most important element of long-term organizational success while equally being the most challenging aspect of organizational life to define and explain.
Because culture is rarely well described, it often serves as the unwritten rules of an organization.
But unwritten rules are still rules.
And breaking the rules comes with consequences — even if they are unwritten.
This is why defining and documenting your organizational culture is so vital.
I learned this the hard way. A decade ago, our church became a campus location of North Point Ministries (NPM). At the time, we were the fourth campus. The other campus and NPM staff members were so welcoming to our small church staff and me. Many people invited me to lunch, coffee, or their office to connect and help us migrate into the NPM organization. As you can imagine, there was a lot to learn.
In each of these conversations, people asked if I had any questions. I didn’t know to respond in those moments. In hindsight, my first question should have been, “How are people successful within NPM?”
That’s a culture-revealing question.
Successful staff members thrive by understanding what to do and how to do it.
The culture question didn’t come to mind. Instead, I ask about other things not as important as the culture. I didn’t realize it at the time, but nothing is more important for a new staff member than understanding the culture.
As the lead pastor of a campus location, I had a job description that defined what I should do, but I didn’t fully understand how I should do it. We were an existing church with our own culture. It wasn’t better or worse than the NPM culture, but it was different. It was how we did things.
Now we were a part of NPM, and we didn’t know their culture.
Most NPM staff had been around so long that knowing how to do their job was second nature. There didn’t seem to be a need to define the culture. It just was understood.
Unless you were new.
Here’s the point: Every organization has a culture. Great organizations like NPM have strong cultures. You can feel it. At times you can see it. Unfortunately, if the culture isn’t well defined and documented, personal trial and error is the only mechanism for transfer. And those experiences are primarily costly.
That’s how I learned the NPM culture. I accidentally stepped on cultural landmines. When they blew up, I learned how not to do things around here. But those landmine experiences were not without pain. Cultural explosions hurt our reputation and set us back. We learn, but not without earning a few scars.
This experience, among others, is why I’m so supportive of organizations defining and documenting their culture. I’ve written a few things on the topic previously:
- Three Simple Steps to Improve Your Organizational Culture
- Two Steps To Define and Document Your Culture
- Five Thoughts on Including Culture in Your HR Process
In this article, I want to talk directly to leaders who have not yet defined their organizational culture. I imagine there are some things your staff desperately need you to know:
1. Your team wants to be successful.
Your staff wants to serve you and the mission well, but job descriptions are only half of the equation. Your church or organization has a culture, and that culture defines how to get the job done. Getting the what of the job (description) done while messing up the how to do it here (culture) leaves staff feeling unsuccessful. They know something is off, but they aren’t sure what’s wrong.
Your staff can’t be successful if they don’t understand what to do (job description) and how to do it (organizational culture).
2. You will unfairly label people.
If you haven’t defined, documented, and distributed your culture, people on your team will step on your landmines, learn the hard way, and their reputation will pay the price. I know we like to think we are above this, but we are not. Our brain wiring labels people naturally. Categorizing people and things helps us make sense of the world.
When a person unintentionally does their job the wrong way, we unfairly label them. It’s our fault they stepped on the landmine, but they are the ones paying the price.
3. You are robbing people of their future.
Culture is not good or bad — it just is. But, your organizational culture is good for some and bad for others. Some people will thrive in your culture, and others will not. That doesn’t mean some people are better than others. It just means people are all different, and what works for some will not for all.
A good person in the wrong culture is bad for them and the organization. They’ll never realize their full potential, and you will be perpetually frustrated.
Conclusion
The problem with unwritten cultural rules is they are still rules. And, there are consequences for breaking the rules, even when unwritten. As a leader, we can do better. Your organization has a culture. Let’s stop making our staff members discover the rules the hard way. Let’s decide to support our teams by writing down these unwritten rules.
How can I help?
Helping you change to do something better and transform to become something better is why I created Transformation Solutions. At Transformation Solutions, we help leaders gain traction for organizational transformation.
Go right now to mytransformationsolutions.com and sign up for a free, 30-minute conversation to decide if working together works for you.
