Organizational Culture & AIESEC
If you would like to start a spirited debate, start talking about organizational culture. And while everybody can agree that (1) it exists, and (2) that it plays a crucial role in shaping behavior in organizations, there is little consensus on what organizational culture actually is, never mind how it influences behavior and whether it is something leaders can change.
This is a problem, because without a reasonable definition (or definitions) of culture, we cannot hope to understand its connections to other key elements of the organization, such as structure and incentive systems. Nor can we develop good approaches to analyzing, approaching and transforming cultures. If we can define what organizational culture is, it gives us a handle on how to diagnose problems and even to design and develop better cultures.
So, what is organizational culture?
There are many different definitions available about what organizational culture is. Universally it is agreed that organizational culture in fact is the way organization does things. Compared to natural forces such as winds and tides, being there in the background sometimes unnoticed and sometimes obvious. Culture is made of instinctive repetitive habits, organization’s culture is collection of values, behaviors and practices that shapes actions, responses and habits of members of the organization.
Maybe the most accurate definition can be also the simplest one: Culture is the self-sustaining pattern of behavior that determines how things are done.
And what do we know about culture?
· Culture is driven by leadership. How leaders behave, what they say, and what they value drives culture. Thus said, in AIESEC our culture is largely shaped by behavior patterns and role modeling of the EBs, and whether we are aware of it or not, we are constantly building culture with our actions.
· Culture doesn’t eat strategy. In fact, the only way to make it work is to ensure that culture and strategy are aligned and are going together, aligned with the vision. For that, we have the organizational alignment matrix that defines the path of culture and strategy and how they are developing from the vision.
· Culture is sum of values, behaviors and practices. If you want to change the culture, focus on changing the behaviors, and the way to change behaviors is through establishing practices aligned with your desired behaviors.
· Best way to approach culture change is defining set of few critical behaviors that you want to change and working out practices that will support their evolution. Mistake that we often make is that we are trying to change everything, and that doesn’t allow any sustainable change to be made. Focus on few behaviors, and make them stick with everyone!
You can read more about organizational culture and how to approach it in the following articles:
10 PRINCIPLES OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
WHAT IS ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
HBR — WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CULTURE
What are we doing with culture in AIESEC in Italy?
We have started culture shaping project for AIESEC in Italy last summer. Main blocks of the project so far have been culture analysis and mapping, as well as the ideal culture definition. With this CULTURE WEEK we want to raise the awareness about what our ideal culture is and to start facilitating practices that are going to address some of the key behaviors we have identified as the essential for us to achieve our vision.
The culture that we want to build focuses on each one of the organization’s members and ownership that they take for the experience they are living. In order to ensure that we provide environment where every member owns his/hers experience we‘re focusing on 4 clarities:
· Clarity of motivation: Knowing why are we part of AIESEC
· Clarity of vision: Knowing where do we want AIESEC experience to take us
· Clarity of development: Knowing how does this experience help us develop ourselves
· Clarity of impact: Knowing what kind of impact do we make inside and outside of organization
To achieve that, we are working on 3 key pillars: PURPOSE, DISCIPLINE & VALUES.
If you want to understand better how did we define our ideal culture and what our current culture looks like, check out culture survey report & culture plan presentation here.
Follow us in next 5 days and dive deep with us in this journey of building ideal culture for AIESEC in Italy.
