 In this video I want to discuss organizational culture. When we think of culture, oftentimes we think about exotic places on the other side of the world that are so different from us and how those cultures are different from what we're used to. But culture exists not only across the world, but culture exists in our own local world. So just broadly speaking, if we look at the United States, there's a certain culture around the Midwest that's different from that of the eastern states and in the southern part of the US and in the western part of the US. And there's different cultures between your community where you live and the one next door, right? That same difference in culture exists in organizations as well. If you've ever worked at more than one place, then you know that they're slightly different. So that's what we're going to look at. What is organizational culture and what does that mean for us as we think about professional presence? So let's first dig into what we mean by culture. Culture is the learned and shared set of symbols, language, values, and norms used to distinguish one group of people from another. That's a big definition, so let's break it down just a little bit here. First of all, we know that culture is learned and shared. Culture is not something you're born with. It's not something that's inherent to your existence as a person. It's not directly connected to a race and ethnicity and nationality, things like that. Culture is something that's passed down from generation to generation, typically by your parents or your immediate family or those who have the greatest influence on you. But they will share with you their cultural values and cultural symbols and so forth, right? So culture is learned and then we share that with other generations and those people who are within our sphere of influence and as well. But culture is something that is learned and shared. Culture also involves these four sets of things, symbols, language, values, and norms. Those are the things that make up our culture. Again, not explicitly nationality or race or ethnicity, things like that. But although lots of times culture will follow along with those things just as a natural byproduct, but culture itself is made up of symbols, language, values, and norms that are shared within that group. And we use culture to distinguish one group of people from another. One group of people from another group of people, just to say these people are like this and they behave in this way and these people are a little bit different and that they behave a little differently and maybe have a different language or set of symbols that they use and so forth. So we use that to distinguish one group of people from another. So again, culture is, you know, in a broader sense, the learned and shared set of symbols, language, values, and norms used to distinguish one group of people from another. So let's break this out a little bit and we'll use some obvious examples. Let's take a look at the components of culture as they exist here in the United States. So first of all, again, we're looking at symbols, language, values, and norms. So some symbols that we have in the United States that are important to our culture here as Americans include things like the flag is an important symbol to us. You know, the national bird or bald eagle is a symbol of the United States, right, and something that conveys this idea of what we are and who we are and what we represent. The Statue of Liberty is an important symbol for us here in the United States. So those are those are examples of different symbols that would be important in American culture, right? As far as language, we know that a number of languages are spoken here in the United States and we don't have an official language, although, for the most part, everybody in the United States speaks English, right? That's kind of the commonly accepted language of the United States. So that's the language that we typically share. Our values in the United States include or, you know, values that we express, things that we say that we value include things like liberty, so the freedom to live as we wish and have that liberty. Justice, we value, you know, in this justice system that we have and that justice is blind and so forth. We talk about us and we talk about valuing equality and we do value equality, I think, although we have funny ways of expressing it in our history with the issues with slavery and racial division and then also, you know, the fact that women were kind of suppressed and oppressed for a long time. But, you know, we're work in progress. I think so we value equality and hope to achieve that as part of our evolution as a nation still. So that's one of our values. So there's different values that we espouse here. And then the norms that we have here in the United States that may be different from other cultures and set us apart. We drive on the right hand side of the road. That's different in some parts of the world. We, you know, kind of have the stereotypical American family of mom and dad and two kids and a dog and we have these big yards that we live in. We don't live in smaller spaces. We tend to, you know, we're known for living in these larger spaces, having bigger houses, more yard space and different things like that than maybe some other cultures are used to. We're used to the four major sports that we have here. Basketball, baseball, football and hockey, right? Sockers on the rise. But it's not nearly as popular as it is in other parts of the world and lots of parts of the world where it's, you know, their national pastime or whatever we tend to value our norms are these sports. Other sports tend to fall a little bit more by the wayside here. So anyway, in the United States, we have those different types of symbols, language, values and norms that we, that we spouse. And that sets us apart from other parts, other groups in different parts of the world. So the same thing is true of organizations. Organizations have the exact same components of culture. They just look slightly different from than they would if we were talking about a country or a larger group of people like that. So an organization that will have its own culture. So let's take a look at that for a second. So symbols that may be important to a particular organizational culture include things like, you know, the brand or the symbol itself of that organization. These are well-known brands. So they represent this idea they represent. So they have this importance. The symbol does the symbol itself of that organization means something. It's also symbolic, you know, the type of place where you work. Are you working in cubicles and things like that? Or do you have your own office? For example, if you're in an organization like this and you have your own office, that would certainly be a symbol. But symbolic of what we have. Do we have cubicles or do we have an open workspace like this? Or like I said, do you have your own big spacious office that you can do what you want with? So those are symbols that would be important to different organizations, depending on the type of organization, which we'll get into in another video here. But but those symbols are representative of what type of culture that organization has and values. As far as the language now, again, if we're in the United States, for the most part, again, businesses are going to the business of business, the language of business is going to be English, probably, although different organizations again value bilingual aspects, especially languages that are spoken more broadly like Spanish and Chinese and things like that. But depending on the type of organization and where they're working in the world may include other. But even beyond just speaking English, if we if we just say, OK, the shared language here is English, but there's there's language beyond that, right? So there's a language of business, for example, things like, let's circle back on that. That's a that's a term you hear a lot in business circle back on that, that you don't necessarily hear just in the gym. When you're talking to your family, you probably don't say that a lot, right? You don't let's circle back on that. But that's a common phrase used in business and acronyms, things like end of business, you know, and every organization is going to have its own list of acronyms that you probably need to learn when you when you come into that organization, right? But you know, you'll be for end of business and different acronyms like that, when people say, paying me, you know, that means, you know, contact them on via Instagram Messenger or email or whatever. And then every organization is going to have their own vocabulary to things like TPS reports. You may not have those in your organization, but they they do in other organizations have things like TPS reports, or there may be something more specific that's related to that. So every organization, though, is going to have its own language, its own shorthand. One of the more famous examples is the military. They have their own language for everything, right? They don't go to the kitchen. They go to the mess. They don't go to the bathroom. They go to the head, right? Those types of things are representative of the language of a particular organization. So we have these different language points that separate one organization from another. What does an organization value? What values do they spouse? Some organizations really believe in collaboration. They believe in working together and everybody pitching in and sharing ideas and having, you know, pulling in the same direction. So to speak, other organizations are going to value competition. Not that they want their, you know, their employees totally just fighting it out all the time, but but they value the, you know, there's some there's some benefits to competition that it can push people a little bit. It can help people rise above a little bit and set people apart. So some organizations are going to value that sense of competition. Other organizations really value creativity. They want people who are who are creative and they want people who are, you know, thinking outside the box, so to speak. That's sort of cliche, but that's what they're looking for. People who can add some creativity and that's uniqueness to their thinking. And then there are other organizations who want a strict hierarchy. They want a plan in place. They want to know these are the steps of the process we're going through and can you follow those steps? Right. So there are different values, things that they value in that regard. Yeah. And finally, every organization has different norms as well. Different norms. So just, just looking at one very simple one, thinking about, you know, when you take your lunch break. Some organizations are going to say, yeah, take your lunch when you want, take as long as you want, take, you know, go off site, stay on site, do, you know, whatever it's your lunch, you do, you do whatever you want. Other organizations are going to say, you have 30 minutes or you have one hour, you have exactly this much time. Do not take longer than that. And they, and we encourage you to go off site or we encourage you not to go off site or whatever, maybe, you know, and you got to take your lunch from this time to this time and so forth to fit into a schedule. So I mean, what are the norms there? Do people normally bring their lunch? Do they, do they go out for lunch? You know, what, what's typical for this organization? That's what we mean by norms. So it can vary in terms of lunch break. There are different norms also within Zoom. We've all been getting a lot more experience with Zoom meetings, right? So there are different expectations of, are you going to be on camera? And if so, are you expected to be on camera the whole time to make sure that you're paying attention? Or are you an organization that says, look, we'd like for you to be on camera, but we understand that if you have some things going on or you need to go off camera for a minute, if you're eating or doing whatever, then go off camera. We'll just assume that you're, you're still paying attention, that you're still listening. Even if you're off camera, we'll assume that you're, you know, actively engaged in the meeting. Others, you know, say, don't use video at all. We don't want video. We don't want to use the bandwidth. We don't want to use whatever, just do the audio and or, or just call it in or whatever. We're not going to use Zoom anyway. So there are a variety of norms and what do you do when you're, when you're done with your meeting? So everybody just log off without saying anything. Or do you say goodbye? Or do you, do you wave at people or do, you know, what are the norms here for those things? You, you pick these things up and every organization is going to be a little bit different and how they handle those things. So every organization, though, has its own culture then because it has unique aspects of all four of these, these sets of called these components and culture, right? So every organization is going to be a little bit different in the way that they handle that. So one of the things that we look at is what's called the competing values framework. This is some research that was done that looks at what are the different types of cultures, general types of cultures that organizations have. Not to be clear, no, no organization fits really neatly into one of these. A lot of times there's some crossover in these things. And, but, but generally organizations will fall into one of these four groups. Clan culture, adhocracy culture, market culture or hierarchy culture. And they're all very different and have different, again, different symbols, different language, different values and different norms that they hold to. But they exist in these competing values framework, right? And we'll take a look at a little more deeply into this research in another video related to organizational culture, the types of organizational culture. So we're not going to spend time on it right now, but just understand that organizations are going to fit generally into one of these. And the idea is to try and find where you fit as well. And what's a good fit for you? What's the best cultural fit for you? One other aspect we want to look at here is the idea of mission versus vision. Mission versus vision. Sometimes we use these terms interchangeably, but they're really, they're very different ideas and they're not representative of the same thing. So when we talk about mission, what we're really talking about is who we are. So who is that organization? You can have your own mission statement as a person and this say, this is who I am. This is what I value. This is what's important to me. Organizations will also oftentimes have a mission statement that says, this is who we are as an organization. This is what we value and this is what represents us. So we're talking about present time, who we are right now and who we've been since our development and where's that lettuce right now? So who we are in the present? That's your mission, right? Vision has to do with who we want to be. Where are we headed? Where is this going? Where is this taking us? Where do we want to end up down the road? So vision is looking in the future. So mission is present tense. It's right now. Vision is future tense looking at where we want to be. And so then, you know, effective organizations, quality organizations will say, OK, recognize this is who we are now and this is who we want to be. And so how do we get there? Sometimes that's a big change. Sometimes it's just a few tweaks. Sometimes they say, you know, we're really quite happy with where we're at. And so we don't need a lot of changes and we are basically who we want to be. So our mission and our vision line up. But but oftentimes you won't. So really, you look at all these things and they're very interconnected. Your mission, your vision, your values are all interconnected. But they're different things. So we need to think of mission as this is who we are now. Vision is this is who we want to be. And we want to espouse our values throughout this entire process. But but and then how are we going to get there? So just understanding the difference. Again, you know, understanding that language of mission versus vision. In general, the organizational culture is important to recognize because we want to make sure that we're in the right place for us, that we're in a spot that's comfortable for us and where we can be effective and be of the best use to that organization as well. So keep that in mind as we move into our to the other video that you want to explore for sure on the types of organizational communication where we dig a little deeper into what each of those types of organization represent and how that might impact our fit into that organizational culture. If you have any questions about it, organizational culture, anything else related to professional presence, don't hesitate to email me and be happy to communicate with you via email and answer any questions you might have. And in the meantime, be sure that you're keeping an eye out for recognizing what the organizational culture is where you're at, recognizing where it's at where you want to be, what that organizational culture is where you might want to be so that when you're interviewing, you're looking around at positions you can you can be sure that you're finding the fit that meets what you're looking for.