Is Community the New Company Culture?
Company culture… who isn’t talking about, writing on, or thinking about this topic these days? Toxic culture is probably why your organization is seeing high turnover rates and gutter-level engagement. At best, poor culture results in bored employees. At worst, you’re going to be filling out your own resumes because your company folded. A positive culture, at worst, can result in an almost entirely green circle on the top of your glassdoor profile, and at best, show up as you constantly having to turn away super high-quality applicants because your talent pool is incredible and unending (just one example!)
It’s HARD
But creating a great company culture is not easy. Companies, even the ones still in the Stone Age without DEIBA efforts, are comprised of people with infinite different experiences and opinions. Bringing together groups, no matter their size, to work towards a shared vision and common goal is a huge undertaking.
Definition
What even IS company culture? Googling is no help. Ask colleagues and you’ll probably get completely different explanations, usually long-winded. Great Place To Work defines company culture as “...how you do what you do in the workplace. It’s the sum of your formal and informal systems and behaviors and values, all of which create an experience for your employees and customers.“ It’s the most concise definition I’ve seen, but it’s still kinda vague.
You’re Trying
So, the wellness initiatives, the cooking classes, the happy hours, and the zoom parties are great efforts (even if
you don’t enjoy them, you’ve got to acknowledge that it means someone is *trying*). It’s not enough. Employees are disconnected, bored, and just sad…but you know what? So are the leaders!
Improving company culture is becoming a pretty common OKR, on top of the already seemingly endless list of OKRs and KPIs. Like you weren’t busy enough before, now this?
What If?
What if we shift our mindset and our language? What if we consider our organizations as communities instead of companies? Here’s a (very easy to find, thank you Google) definition of community.
a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.
a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.
Let’s simply replace the word ‘living’ with ‘working’ and ‘characteristic’ with ‘mission’ (or vision or goal, your choice). Community in this frame would then be defined as “a group of people working in the same place (zoom & hybrid count!) or having a particular mission in common”. So now, let’s improve this community. We, as humans, have been doing this for so much longer than worrying about company culture. Building strong communities is relatively easy. Create meaningful gatherings, exhibit strong leadership, share purpose (through education and transparency), avoid apathy, and embrace empathy.
Assess and improve your company COMMUNITY.
Change is hard no matter what label is applied. If you’re ready for real transformation in your organization, reach out here, and let’s get started.
