 When we think of culture, we tend to think of it in broad terms like people from other countries and huge scopes like that, but the truth is that culture exists at every level of society and Certainly organizations are no exception to that. We have a very specific Organizational cultures that exist. So in this video, we want to take a look at what is organizational culture? What are some of the components of culture and how does that fit into organizations? And then also what are some of the different common types of organizational culture? So let's start with the definition of what is culture? Well, culture is the learned and shared set of symbols, language, values, and norms used to distinguish one group of people from another. So let's break that down a little bit in terms of the important components of culture that exist. So first of all, we have symbols. In every culture, you have symbols that represent important aspects and ideas within that culture. Here in the United States, we're no exception, of course. We were to look at the United States as a whole, as a country. One important symbol would be the US flag, of course. We take great pride in that and what it symbolizes. And in the end, while the flag is just some fabric that's put together in a very specific way, it's what it symbolizes, both for us and around the world, that is important and what defines it as part of our culture. Other aspects of culture might include the symbols of the bald eagle as the official kind of American bird or American animal representative of that. The Statue of Liberty is another symbol that represents the United States and the different various cultural aspects that we espouse here in the United States. So culture is first made up of symbols, in part made up of symbols that represent that culture. Culture is also made up of a language. Now, in the United States, we share a common language of English. It's not an official thing, but there are lots of languages spoken in the United States. But generally speaking, we identify English as the language that we speak here in the United States. But every culture has its own language, even within English, of course. When you go from the Midwest where we call carbonated beverages, you know, sweet carbonated beverages, we call them pop in the Midwest. But if you were to go to different parts of the country, you might hear it called soda. So we have different language that we use as a component of that culture and sometimes can identify culture based on the language that it uses, even if they're all speaking the same broader language like English. Every culture also has its own set of values. So here in the United States, some of the values that we espouse might include liberty and justice and equality and fairness. Those are the values that we claim to espouse here in the United States and that we hold dear to us. Every culture has its own set of values that it claims to and that it feels represents it. And then finally, what are the norms in that culture? What are the ways that things are usually done within that culture? In the United States, we drive on the right side of the road, meaning, you know, directionally. We drive on the right side of the road, not just the correct side, but whereas in other cultures, they drive on the left side of the road. In the United States, the norm is mom and dad and 2.5 kids and a big lawn as opposed to, you know, a larger family living in an apartment or something, you know, that may be different in other parts of the world. But in the United States, this is kind of our idealized norm. In the United States, we have the norms of our major sporting leagues, the NBA, Major League Baseball, the NFL, and NHL, whereas in the rest of the world, of course, soccer is like the primary sport of the world. But here in the United States, it's growing, but it's not nearly at the level of the other major four sports areas. So those are the norms for sports in our culture. So every culture has these different components that exist within it. The business world is no different. Organizationally, we are no different. We have different symbols that represent a particular culture. When you see a symbol for an organization, we kind of have an idea of what that represents, certainly the organization that it represents if it's a famous one, but also the kind of organization that it is. But so it becomes symbolic and representative of that organization. And so do things like, okay, is this a workplace that has very segmented cubicles that they use to kind of separate and distinguish workers from one another? Or is it more of an open space where you have these shared spaces that people use and kind of enhances collaboration, encourages collaboration? Or is there a real strict hierarchy where some people have offices with doors and fancy furniture and other people don't? So these are the types of symbols that you see representing an organizational culture and identifying what kind of culture you have in that organization. There's also, of course, a language that goes along with any organization. Every business in every organization has these buzzwords and different languages that they use. So you might hear things like, let's circle back on that. Or can you have that to me by EOB, meaning end of business, right? Some places use that. Other places it's popular to say, ping me, right? Ping me. And finally, you may have the language of TPS reports that may be specific to that organization and may not mean anything to other organizations. So every organization has its own little bits of language and jargon that go within that organization that wouldn't fit into others necessarily. Organizations also have their own values. Some organizations value collaboration and people working together and sharing information across teams and across individuals and across platforms. Other organizations really value competition and people working not necessarily at the expense of one another, but working in competition with one another to push one another and drive one another, whereas other organizations may value creativity or may value hierarchy in a specific plan and process and doing things. So we see that different organizations espouse different values. Finally, we see different norms at organizations. So for example, one organization may be different than another in what you do with your lunch break. Not only when is it and how long is it, but what do you do? Do you stay on site? Do you go off site? Do you eat with colleagues or is that a time to just spend yourself? And there may be some different expectations for that. Or when you're on a Zoom meeting, which has become more and more frequent for most organizations, when you're on a Zoom meeting, how do you sign off? Do you say goodbye? Do you wave? Do you just flip the laptop shut? Or what do you do? What's the appropriate way in that specific organization to close out a Zoom meeting and to excuse yourself from that meeting? What are the expectations surrounding that? So every organization has different norms, and so the collection of these symbols, language, values, and norms make up the culture, not only of a society, but of an organization as well. A number of years ago, two researchers put together this idea called the Competing Values Framework, which really identify four distinct types of organizational culture. I'm going to very briefly run through these just to give you an idea of the different types of organizational cultures that exist. The Competing Values Framework was put together initially by Robert Quinn and John Rohrbaugh, who were researchers at the University of Michigan. So in 1981, they published this work on the Competing Values Framework. They sought to identify the criteria for organizational effectiveness. That was their general idea, was to find out what makes some organizations effective, and others not. They wanted to find that, so they did some research into that. Their result ended up with a two-dimensional four-component type of culture, identifying these different dimensions, which were internal and external, and then stability and flexibility, the different spectrums on internal and external, and stability and flexibility. So this led to what we call the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument, or the OCAI. So from the work of Quinn and Rohrbaugh, we find, again, these two dimensions. So these two spectrums that create these dimensions are internal focus and integration, and external focus and integration. So is the organization more internally focused or more externally focused? And then the other dimension is flexibility and freedom to act versus stability and control. So stability and flexibility, internal and external. When you do that, you put those together. Obviously, you get the four compartments here, which lead to our four different types of organizational culture that we're going to take a look at. Clan culture, adhocracy culture, market culture, and hierarchy culture. So let's start with clan culture and take a look and see what is involved in clan culture. We can see that clan culture is internally focused and higher in the spectrum of flexibility. So it's internal and flexibility. Those are its main areas of emphasis. So with clan culture, the different characteristics that are represented, then, are a collaborative orientation. There's an emphasis on collaboration between team members and between teams. So that's what is emphasized in everything about that organization. People are a priority. They emphasize what people bring to the table and the different ideas and the different work styles and different things. And they emphasize that the different components then make a greater whole, that some is greater than the whole of the parts. There's an emphasis on teamwork. And so it's not just working independently and working on your own. It's working with others to draw upon the different strengths that different people can bring. And they encourage partnerships and mentorships in terms of their leadership style and things that's not so much a strict hierarchy where you may have bosses and subordinates and things, but really it's about partnerships. How can we develop these individuals and how can we develop these people to the best of our ability and have them work most effectively within the organization? It's the impact that we see in a clan culture in terms of communication. Communication is open. It's discussion-based. It's less formal language that's used in this organization. And there's lots of talk to be had. Dress in a clan culture may be more casual than it might be in a more traditional organization. You do see more flexibility and autonomy. There's more trust and more individual accountability at work. In terms of the office space, it's probably more open to encourage collaboration amongst individuals and amongst teams. And then as I mentioned, the employee manager dynamic is more mentorship and coaching over an authoritarian aspect where there's a strict sense of hierarchy and so you see more coaching and mentoring than somebody just strictly giving orders and doing that type of thing. Some of the different organizations where we commonly see this type of clan culture include places like Google, Twitter, and a lot of high-tech organizations as well as Southwest Airlines, which is owned by the employees and so you see that more type of clan culture. Next, we'll take a look at adhocracy culture. The characteristics of adhocracy culture include being creation-oriented. They're very focused on creativity. Prominence within their market is a priority. They want to be number one. They don't necessarily need to be there the fastest and things but they want to be seen as the preeminent organization in their field. They're innovative but also chaotic. That orientation toward creativity leads to a lot of innovation and creativity but also can be a little bit chaotic in terms of the way the organization is run and the way they communicate. And they're really motivated by being the next big thing. That's really at the forefront of their minds being the next big thing. The impact that adhocracy culture has then in terms of communication tends to be free flowing and multi-dimensional. A heavy use of technology to communicate using email and instant messaging and those types of channels of communication. The dress is probably more casual if there isn't any dress code at all. The creative expression is encouraged not only in the work but also in your personal appearance. You see a lot of autonomy, a lot of flexibility and autonomy. It's probably the loosest structure of the four types of culture that we'll discuss. Employees may be based in the office but they could also be based out of wherever they choose. Work hours may also vary between people. The office space may or may not be used by all employees. Maybe not everybody who works there uses that office space even. And you see creative expression encouraged in where you work and in your office space as well. The employee manager dynamic tends to be that leaders create the mission and cast a vision. And then employees after that are largely self-driven. Rules and roles are not always clearly defined which is where you get some of that chaos that works its way in here. It's very innovative but chaotic. Examples of adhocracy culture can be found in Apple, Adobe, and many other types of tech heavy organizations. You see a lot of adhocracy where they value that creativity and the innovation but can be a little bit chaotic. Next we'll discuss market culture which is very high on both external focus and stability and control. The characteristics of market culture include being competition oriented meaning you see lots of maybe sales competitions and things like that amongst employers. Employees are always kind of pitted one against the other. Results are prioritized over things like creativity and satisfaction and things. They want results. What's the bottom line? How many sales did you have? How many customers did you interact with? This is a results-oriented organization. Market cultures tend to be very goal-focused and fast-paced and they emphasize deadlines, targets, and getting things done. That's the bottom line. Again, prioritizing those results and emphasizing getting things done. The impact of market culture on communication is a top-down communication style that focuses on profit via customer service and satisfaction. In other words, is where we get to saying the customer is always right. Dress is probably, if not a uniform, then certainly business attire. Image is very important in a market culture, so dress tends to be somewhat standardized. Autonomy. You'll see some flexibility in autonomy, but there also tends to be a lot of structure in terms of the days and times that people are going to be working and the expectations within that. The office space is focused on being professional and image-oriented. The image that they present to customers is very important here. And the employee-manager dynamic is that the organization is in control in an effort to maximize and standardize the customer experience. Now, this can be demanding in pushing for high performance, and there tends to be a tendency to micromanage employees as well. You see in the market culture in more traditional organizations like Coca-Cola and McDonald's and Starbucks and Amazon, which tend to be ostensibly customer focused and trying to drive sales and see results then. Finally, we can discuss the hierarchy culture, which is probably the most traditional out of all the cultures, a very internal focus and very focused on stability and control as a way to maximize efficiency and productivity. So in hierarchy culture, you see very much a control orientation. Everything is tightly controlled so that you can maximize that efficiency. See a great deal of structure, consistency and efficiency, which are the priorities within this organization. They're really motivated by doing things right, doing things the right way to again maximize efficiency, maximize productivity, and they are directed by procedures because everybody has a job to do and everybody needs to do that job in the right way so that the other people can all do their jobs in the right way and it's all very much integrated. The impact of a hierarchy culture on communication is that it's heavily top-down. It's very formal with established channels and none of the chaos that you see really in an ad-hocracy culture, for example, it's very tightly controlled, very top-down focused. The dress is probably the most traditional of the four. It's typically a business dress or a business casual at the very least. As far as autonomy, there is a strict start and stop time for the day. They have tightly regulated breaks and lunches typically and you see more formal requests for time off or if you're going to be leaving the office. Decision making is all virtually top-down and there's much less flexibility in autonomy. Office space tends to be more traditional or traditional office or even cubicle type spaces and the employee-manager dynamic is that of a formal relationship between managers and subordinates. It's highly structured and micromanagement here is very prevalent. You see hierarchy culture a lot in universities across the nation and especially in the government, for example, is very hierarchy driven and in every aspect of the government but also in particular the military would be an example of hierarchy culture where you have strict control, strict expectations, a very formal relationship between employers and managers. Regardless of what the culture is, there's going to be something that fits everybody and every culture is going to be different in different organizations. No culture is going to be exactly the same as somewhere else but there's a fit for everybody. Some of those may have sounded great to you others may have sounded like a nightmare and I can promise you there's somebody out there having the opposite feelings of you. Some people think a market nightmare is too chaotic. Some people would think a hierarchy is too restrictive but there's somebody out there who's going to find that the proper fit for them. The most important thing is that we find and identify what culture is going to work best for us and allow us to do our best work. That's going to lead the best results for us individually as well as for that organization. If you have questions about organizational culture and any aspect of organizational culture please feel free to contact me via email. I'd love to discuss it with you there. In the meantime I hope this gives you a new appreciation for the different types of cultures that exist in organizations and the importance of finding that culture that is a good fit for you as an individual.