“When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves”

Viktor E. Frankl

Since the beginning of 2020 we have been living in an unrealistic scenario that we had only seen in movies before and we never thought it could become a reality in “our lifetime”. It’s been 6 months since WHO declared a Pandemic and 6 months since we’ve gone through tough times and changes.

Organisations have had a pretty rough transition, especially the ones where employees were physically required in the office; people went through the struggle of working from home (yes, there are many who hate working from home), micro-managers’ power of breathing down someone’s neck has diminished or it disappeared; work travel slowed down or stopped, many people lost their jobs and some had to go to a new role or reinvent themselves and chose a different path.

How do we cope with this change?

Our greatest gift is adaptability, and no matter what is thrown at us, we survive it! (that’s also what made us the greatest enemy of our planet, yes…).

Corporate culture is one of the most common subjects when it comes to organisations today. You hear it in interviews, from candidates trying to understand where they will work: “What is the culture in your organisation?” or the interviewer “She / he didn’t fit our culture”, you hear in friendly chats: “Mate, I’m done with this company, I don’t like their culture”, you hear it in management meetings: “Let’s drive a culture change, I want my team to behave more like this and less like that”  

But what is corporate culture?

Corporate culture could be defined as: Patterns of accepted behaviour and the values that support them. They are “patterns of accepted behaviour” because what may not be acceptable in some organisations, it’s acceptable in others: “Here, it’s ok to take a 2 hours lunch break as long as you meet your deadlines”, “we wear business attire everyday” , “it’s ok to come in at 10am if you stay till 7pm ” or “no one stays late in the office, work-life balance matters here”

Corporate culture is important because it is unique to each organisation and it’s a part of company’s identity. More often than not, corporate culture is implied, not defined in a black and white text; it will reflect in dress code, hiring decision, turnover, office hours, office setup. Culture is mainly given by: vision, values, practices and people. Let’s look at them one at the time:

Vision: This is the purpose of the organisation, the “why” and the “where” together.

Values: They shape the culture from the inside out. Values are a nice blend of the beliefs and the philosophies behind the vision.

Practices: An organisation’s values and vision fail if practices don’t support them: writing “honesty” in block letters as your main value but not allowing your employees to discuss issues openly is a major discrepancy between values and practices. They need to work hand-in-hand.

People: Your glue to values, vision and practices. The cherry on top.

Will Covid19 impact corporate culture?

It already has, absolutely. Moving people from face to face interaction to zoom meetings is a change in practice. “Business attire” to a “home office attire”, booking meeting rooms in advance to picking up the call while cooking dinner; these are changes that impact the corporate culture; “open door” policy is now a matter of “Is this is the right time to talk?” or choosing not to call at all, the ‘9 to 5’ became 8am to 8pm (or later) so yes, the current situation impacts people, impacts working style, impacts organisations and changes culture.

How do we move forward? There are two types of change:  the evolutionary one, sweet and smooth, and the disruptive one, quick and painful. Unfortunately, the one we’re going through right now is the disruptive one. In order to make it easier for us, we need to understand when do people accept disruptive change? Short answer is, we don’t like it. However, we accept disruptive change:

1. When it’s effortless. Covid19 did not make it easy on people: redundancy, termination, working from home. However, what we see as easy change is “I have everything I need to do this (the skills, the technology to make a home office) and the business supports me to do it”
2. When it’s rewarding. “Working from home will be beneficial for the safety of my community and my own.”
3. When it’s common. We want to be part of the bigger group. In order to change, people need a sense of belonging, normality or similarity: “People like me, are doing the same thing, we all work from home” – We are wired to be together and we don’t like to stand out; even when we do want to stand out, we admire other people like us, who stand out which brings us back to the sense of “belonging”.

If transitioning to working from home was tough on your organisation, go back to your vision, values and people and use the 3 steps above to make it successful and smooth. It will also help if you keep consistency in your behaviour: if you used to personally check on each employee in the office, why not do the same online? Drop them a text on Monday and to find out about their weekend activities, or ask them about that important meeting they had last Wednesday. Don’t forget their birthdays and encourage your team to keep in touch with each other.

“When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”
-Haruki Murakami