Cultivating winning culture in small, emerging organization

Who is cultivating culture? In one of my client organization, the CEO starts his monthly review meeting first by reviewing the employee engagement aspects like safety issues, employee participation levels, recognition, and then only he reviews other business deliverables. Over a period, "employees first" becomes the culture of the organization. The people under him also are giving first preference to employee engagement aspects. Similarly, in another organization, the business head always keens at delivery performance irrespective of any factors. His team also oriented to the practice. Now the culture of the organization is to deliver target" somehow" irrespective of profitability, quality level, or process adherence. Even in the home, if parents watch TV while eating, then the children also follow the same, then, over a period, it will become a culture of that family. The point is that the person at influencing level cultivates the culture either good or bad, not the other way around as followers cultivate the culture. Irrespective of title, you are the leader in your work or home. Influence positive, right things consistently, that will become a practice & culture.

In the personal front, what you do consistently becomes a habit. Similarly, in an organizational setup, what you do always becomes the culture.

culture is nothing but how people behave, relate to your business challenges in the organization.

It is the leadership team that is establishing the culture. When I say leadership team, not only CEO, senior-level managers, whoever is leading a team are leaders. When they demonstrate consistent behavior in some aspects, that will become the culture of the organization.

For example, if the leader believes in data transparency in everyday interaction, then the team also start thinking in data collection, analysis, sharing, and taking decision based on the data.

is it difficult to change the culture?

At the outset, anything is difficult in life, but possible with conviction. That is applicable in organizational culture setting and change the culture as well !!