Is corporate culture changing?

“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:

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”
When it’s rewarding. “Working from home will be beneficial for the safety of my community and my own.”
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

Control and influence or learn to let go

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude” – Maya Angelou

Human beings seek control and dislike uncertainty, ambiguity and the unknown. We have expectations and we put our hope in people, situations and organisations. We go to work and expect to get a promotion, we make a friend and we expect support, we plan a holiday and we expect it to meet our dreams. Yet , it doesn’t work this way, it doesn’t always happen to have your expectations met. And that’s when you get hurt, you suffer, you hate others for getting “what you deserved in the first place” , you quit, you have negative thoughts and there goes the long chain of bitterness.

Why do people get stuck in the chain of bitterness? Because they can’t seem to understand their area of control and influence and more importantly the area where they don’t have any of them.

Take a look at the sphere below:

At the core of it, it’s you and the wonderful area you can control.

Immediately outside it, is the area you can influence.

Once your influence area ends, there’s a massive area of concern and unknown that you can’t control or influence.

For example:

You can control the time you leave the house but you can’t control the traffic to the office.

You can influence your colleague to cover for you but you can’t control what she thinks of you.

The world is full of triggers that fill you with frustration, disappointment, jealousy and pain.

What can you do about it?

Focus on the things you can control and influence.

Start by acknowledging what you actually control and influence everyday ( eg: what time you wake up, what you have for breakfast – whether you choose to have breakfast at all, what means of transport you use to go to work, how you respond to people, your attitude, how much effort you put into what you do) and less on what you can’t influence or control (what people think of you, how bad the traffic gets on your way to work, what others achieve, what the weather looks like)

A great way to get going would be to start using the sphere and write your own details in each part of it. If you’re still confused whether something is in your control or not, ask yourself : Can I change it? Can I do it differently? If the answer is yes, then you control or influence the task, hence the outcome depends on you.

If the answer is no, don’t beat yourself up, work on enlarging your sphere of influence/control by connecting with people and investing in yourself. Will share more tips and tricks about this in future articles.

“Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.” – Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

10 things to focus on while @home

Tell someone they can do anything, and they won’t know what to do. Tell them what they can’t do and they’ll know exactly what to do. – Anonymous

Funny enough, reverse psychology seems to have a go at people nowadays and people give in. We are told to stay in, we prefer to go out, we are told to buy our usual grocery list, we panic buy, we are told to work from home, we think we’d be better off in the office… put us on lockdown and you’ll see how many reasons we’ll have to be on the streets… it’s human. (and so are the excuses)

Staying home comes with boredom and less activity, but don’t get stuck at the tip of the iceberg! Dive in and choose to make your stay better and more enjoyable. There are plenty of pros in staying home, not only eat, watch TV, sleep; that’s just a part of it. Have a look at the 10 things to do while @home checklist:

Read a book (yes, I know. That’s the no 1 advice you’ve heard and that’s what you’ve been thinking too! but…when was the last time you read for 2 hours without falling asleep, without checking your phone?) here is a list for inspiration from The Independent
Cook something new (you bought everything in the grocery store, you might as well try a new a new recipe and here’s one of my favourites )
Exercise ( get yourself back on track, go out for a walk in the evening, try working out at home if space allows it)
Learn a new skill ( painting maybe? I don’t know, whatever passion you left off because you didn’t have time, invest in it)
Keep in touch with friends and family (if you can’t visit, it doesn’t mean you can’t call; don’t make the mistake to distance yourself from the loved ones just because you have to stay indoors)
Read news once a day only (your well-being is important)
Eat well (not more) and stay hydrated
Take breaks when working from home (stick to lunch break at lunch and in between take 5 minutes break every 1 hour)
Try to keep household activities separate from work activities (taking a work call while chopping veggies is the not the right approach)
If you enjoy watching movies, focus on comedies

Other than that, stay positive and treat yourself and your colleagues with kindness. This short term crisis will end soon and you’ll be back on track in no time.