What’s it like to work there?

In their new book, business school professors Jennifer Chatman and Glenn Carroll examine five popular beliefs about corporate culture and just like expert improv comedians say, “Yes, and ….”

“Making Organizational Culture Great: Moving Beyond Popular Beliefs,” was published this month. Chatman, a psychologist, is dean of the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. Carroll, a sociologist, is a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

The authors, longtime culture researchers, find truth in each of the common views about culture: It doesn’t change much, comes from the top down, benefits only employees who fit in, is fuzzy, and doesn’t boost the bottom line. Yet there’s more truth in some than in others.

“The ultimate verdict on the popular beliefs shows that even though they have some veracity at times, following them blindly surely leads to many missed opportunities, as well as to mistakes—sometimes terrible ones,” they write.

Their approach is reminiscent of one of the fundamental principles of improvisation, in which one comedian accepts what the other says — the “yes” — and then expands on it — the “and.”

Here’s how Chatman and Carroll examine common beliefs about culture.

1. Culture is inert. Inertia is very strong, making it hard to change an organization’s culture, Chatman and Carroll write.

Yet they offer “exceptions,” examples of companies that dramatically changed their culture. The common element is strong leadership, although that’s not enough.

“To succeed, leaders need to act and behave consistently, adopt a comprehensive approach to changing the organization, and offer a coherent narrative about the goals and the path to achieve them,” they write. “If leaders can do all that, then they have a chance, maybe even a fighting chance. But bringing about cultural change in organizations is so challenging that you probably also need a bit of luck to succeed as well.”

2. Culture comes from the top. As you might guess from the last question, Chatman and Carrol say that senior leaders have an enormous influence on culture. That influence is felt by actions more than words. The influence can be intentional or unintentional. It can be for better or for worse.

However, leaders are “limited by their ability to influence and gain support from many others in an organization,” they write. “The many others who are not founders or CEOs don’t just give up when a leader is not doing a good job in creating a strategically relevant, strong, and adaptive culture.”

3. Culture is soft. This belief partly reflects the view that culture is purely about using perks to encourage positive attitudes about work, Chatman and Carrol write.

Employee perks like free food, shopping discounts or on-site amenities like gyms may encourage good feelings, but they aren’t the same as culture. Culture is a shared agreement about the standards and values of a company.

“In other words, people agree about ‘the right thing to do at this organization,’” they write. Employees are so committed that they hold themselves and others to those standards and values.

The belief that culture is soft also reflects an attitude that culture cannot be measured, an opinion that Chatman and Carroll reject. While culture in the past has often been measured by qualitative research, it can also be evaluated with quantitative techniques.

They analyze four widely used cultural assessment tools identifying the tools’ strengths and weaknesses. But the two approaches should be combined.

“A quantitative measure of organizational culture can be augmented with qualitative observations that provide details and illustrations of observable behaviors and deeper assumptions,” they write.

We rely on both quantitative and qualitative research when conducting communications audits, which we outline in our essential audit checklist.

4. Aligned people do best. Employees who are in sync with the culture generally are better paid, stay with the company longer and are more satisfied with their work, compared to other employees, the authors note.

There is too much of a good thing. Organizations with homogenous workforces often exclude people based on race and gender and may demonstrate less creativity and innovation, the authors point out.

Moreover, hiring people who you predict will fit the culture accounts for 15% of how they actually do. But “socializing people once they join” accounts for more than 40%, the authors say, citing a study co-authored by Chatman.

“This contrast suggests that investing in a search for people who already fit can help, but if you really want to increase fit among employees, exposing people to key cultural experiences once they join is key,” Chatman and Carroll write.

Kristin Graham, an affiliate consultant with Ragan Consulting Group, has suggested beginning employees’ introduction to the culture after they accept a job offer and before they start.

That way “captures attention early and makes the culture promise real,” Graham says in a guide on the RCG website.

5. Good culture doesn’t help the bottom line. This view persists, based on experience, the authors write. “Bad experience.”

Culture management programs are often badly run, the authors admit. Even when they’re run well, people frequently have unrealistic expectations about change, especially in the short term. And those who benefit from the status quo resist.

Despite these challenges, the authors make a vigorous argument.

“The stories and studies that we have reviewed, and many that we haven’t, in this book leave little doubt that culture can affect performance,” they write.

But it ain’t easy.

Less talk, more action
Clear, effective communication is an underlying theme of the book, which makes it valuable reading for internal communicators.

Yet Chatman and Carroll plainly would like to see less talk and more action. In their experience, about 80% of managers say their organization’s culture needs to change. And when asked what they would do to change the culture, managers “eerily” give the same answers that don’t work.

The suggestions “typically involves something under the direct control of a manager and entails activities that they often do on a regular basis: ‘Let’s call a meeting and talk,’ or ‘Tweak the reward system,’ or ‘Send out communications,’ or ‘Ask people to enroll in a training program,’” they write.

Chatman and Carroll write, “Employees become weary when hearing about a new cultural change effort that uses the same techniques that the last one did, only the words in the slide deck have changed, or so it seems at times.”

Free cupcakes for employees may not do much to strengthen corporate culture, Tom Corfman admits. But he likes cupcakes. He’s a senior consultant with Ragan Consulting Group. Want to learn how your organization can build a better culture? Email Tom to set up a free call with RCG affiliate consultant Kristin Graham.

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