…today’s secret…Dissecting organizations.
We live in a world of organizations, from our birth in a hospital to our burial at a funeral home.
In between we are educated, employed, fed, entertained, made happy, and pissed off by many organizations. Public. Private. Charitable. State-owned. Yada, yada, yada… Organizations are integrated into our lives.
But what do we really know about organizations as a whole? The answer is not as much as we should.
First, what is an organization?
Answer. A group of people who work in some formalized arrangement to do something.
Do organizations have any common structure?
Answer. Sure. An organization’s skeleton is basically built around the same set of players.
There are the…
…operators who do the basic work of the organization.
…support staff that support the organization indirectly.
…analysts who control and adapt the activities in one way or another.
…managers who oversee all of the activities.
…external influencers who shape the organization’s behavior from the outside.
However, the commonality stops there.
All organizations become unique because this set of players are connected in so many different ways. More importantly, each organization has its own unique culture.
An organization’s culture is its values, practices, and behaviors. Culture is the organization’s internal personality. An organization cannot buy or outsource its culture. Culture is what employees feel about their organization.
Every organization has a bulletin board stapled with all the government imposed documents. Owners write employee handbooks identifying how management wants everything done.
Wanna know what culture really is? It’s when a long-time employee walks up to the new hire and says, “Hey, let me tell you how we really do things around here.”
Know this…an organization’s culture is the invisible component that causes an organization to rise or fall.
Here’s the inside scoop…
Great cultures start with a Core Values list. This is what an organization believes in. Core values need to be lived every day by employees and reinforced by management.
An actionable Core Values list will improve an organization’s culture as well as the experience it delivers to its clients. If you don’t have a core values list you just have a wish list.
Your Core Values list should not exceed 100 words. Opinion.
I will gladly send you a 71 word Core Value list as an example…if you want?