We frequently experience the seemingly countless aspects of conflict. Conflict with our family members, kids, co-workers, our boss, random commuters, or one of those extra special days when you dispute with all of them.

Conflict happens around us all the time. It’s as innate in our personal and cultural development as smiling when we see something funny. Though there are different types of conflict (power, value, economic) across numerous levels (interpersonal, intra-group, role, international), one setting where conflict manifests, that is both delicate and constant, is in our organizations.

If we think of organizations as being “an environment where the realistic process of making decisions and allocating resources take place within a context of scarcity”* then we can start to see how conflict is essentially sewn into the fabric of our organizations. Additionally, if we consider most businesses are arranged hierarchically (power-over) with groups of diverse individuals, all with differences in values, beliefs, information and interests, then structural tensions emerge and easily turn into disputes and organizations act merely as the arenas for the players to engage each other in conflict.

Here’s the catch though: Is conflict a bad thing in an organization? Tosan believes the answer to be “not necessarily.” Remember that conflict can be either productive or debilitating and the real difference is how we engage it. Tosan approaches organizational conflict with our clients as an opportunity for awareness and insight because it provides a dipstick for gauging the engine oil of your culture and how well it is operating.

Conflict should not automatically precipitate feelings of difficulty and stress. Yet most people, and indeed most organizations, are conflict averse. Meaning they prefer not to deal with it unless they have to. They view conflict as negative, unproductive and something meant to be avoided, so conflict aversion is understandable and will more than likely produce diluted, topical, and ill-conceived resolutions while damaging productivity, lowering morale, threatening team building and setting negative behavioral standards*. Once those influences are subsumed into the organizational culture, it becomes an immense undertaking to remove.

Tosan coaches our clients to instead view conflict as both natural and necessary in organizations and that our roles as employees, co-workers, and managers is not to eliminate conflict, but to transform it from debilitating to constructive. A wise manager understands that there is an essential balance of conflict in the workplace and they have the unspoken duty to maintain that equilibrium. Too little conflict stifles the innovation of a company, while too much conflict dampens creativity and keeps employees ducking their heads for fear of harsh scrutiny or retaliation.

Yet, what we sometimes fail to realize is that as employees we also have a responsibility to productively engage in conflict. This seems a bit counterintuitive, right? Like riding a deranged horse into a burning stable in order to put out the fire. The reason we have to transform conflict is because constructive conflict is healthy for organizations and is not a sign that greater problems underlie the foundational walls.

Productively managed conflict has multiple benefits. It challenges the mediocrities that embed in our organizational cultures, it queries the status quo, and stimulates innovation and creativity with the natural curiosities of human communication*. Indeed, conflict can be seen as a source for self-development, social transformation, and of course organizational change.

It takes self-awareness and consistent practice in order to transform conflict and should not be thought of as a light undertaking nor an impossible duty. It includes much trial and error but those capable of exerting such a skill not only provide an irreplaceable asset for the organization, but also are more likely to benefit from their job and family, appreciate experience, and incorporate those learnings into their daily approach. Studies show that top performing leaders are also highly capable conflict managers who typically enjoy higher salaries, recurring promotions, and less physical and mental stress.

If we can start to think of conflict as an opportunity to create personal growth for employees and a lever for organizational change then we can transform the nature of organizational conflict entirely from one of power, anger, conformity, and contradiction to one where collaboration, healthy questioning, productive feedback, and higher achievement provide a consistent method for accomplishing tasks and creating better relationships.

*Boleman, Lee & Deal, Terrance (2003). Reframing Organizations. San Francisco, CA.: Jossey-Bass

In our work with clients, we often times develop and provide a visual map of the system(s) we’re working within, or across. This approach serves our projects with a number of advantages:

• A high level view of a project allows teams to see the components of a project and how they will be supported. This helps them to consistently and concisely communicate about the project’s scope and support.
• An organizational view of a division or the entire company can be helpful in understanding where a project can have impact, where it may need to be supported from, and possibly where it should avoid conflict with other programs or redundancies.
• In addition to organizational maps, crafting maps of our markets help us to segment our audiences that need to be communicated to in different ways.
• Combining maps can help us see gaps in what we are wanting to achieve with the systems that are at play.

EXERCISE: Draw an organizational map – your functional groups, regions and business units. Now draw a map of your offerings – services, products, etc. Lastly, draw a map of the markets you sell to – verticals and industries, or horizontal markets, or perhaps regions. As you look across the maps, you can begin to see opportunities to align segmented efforts with desired impact. More importantly, you can see gaps that could increase effectiveness and efficacy.

This discipline of mapping our efforts and the areas in which they operate can bring great clarity and focus to our internal and external initiatives. This approach lets us understand how our efforts will play out from a “systems” point of view – this is Systems Thinking.

As our organizations become more complex, reach farther, and have to operate with more agility and flexibility, understanding the different systems at play can help us better anticipate how changes will affect outcomes. By working to continually see the interdependencies that exist in all that we do, and touch as an organization, we can ask better questions and make more informed decisions.

For another take on systems thinking in our world, take a look at this blog entry by our partner company, Systemic.

There are many people in the workplace who have fallen into the “Mediocrity Trap” – we define as being “moderate to inferior in quality or ordinary, in terms of ability, achievement or performance.” They may have a strong motivation to do their best work and contribute to the benefit of the organization but have instead embraced a substandard modus operandi that relegates their constructive inspirations to the realm of the mundane and the minimal.

Why do most people settle for mediocrity while deep down they desire more? The answer is, the “comfort zone”. People want to feel a sense of safety and security and when operating in  their comfort zone. We enjoy familiarity with our actions and, generally, the results from those actions. In other words, we feel safe. The moment we leave our comfort zone and execute actions that we have not yet mastered, people often experience a sense of fear – fear of failure, fear of judgment, fear of looking bad. None of these are acceptable in business cultures that value competency, knowledge, safety, and experience. Mediocrity is the result of staying safe and familiar and often means giving into the fears of uncertainty. This creates a problem, a sort of addiction to our sense of security brought about by familiarity. Simply stated, complacent familiarity breeds mediocrity and thus creates the Mediocrity Trap.

The Dangers of Mediocrity in Your People, Especially Team Leaders

As business leaders, we cannot afford to lose good employees, at any level. People leave their jobs for many reasons: external reasons that are mostly beyond our control, and internal reasons, which we must be diligent to identify and work hard to mitigate. One such internal reason of departure happens when mediocrity is allowed to become pervasive in organizations. Great employees want to work for great leaders and will not tolerate mediocrity at any level.

Leaders must not only possess the requisite experience and qualifications that the company needs but it is essential they demonstrate a commitment to the pursuit of excellence with no tolerance for mediocre performance and results. High performing leaders must also have a clear understanding of the requirements for success. This, combined with a healthy and infectious enthusiasm, is vital for stimulating an organization in the pursuit of performance excellence. The legendary coach, Vince Lombardi, may have said it best:  “You must be fired with enthusiasm or you will be fired with enthusiasm.”

The Slippery Slope

The descent into mediocrity begins with a decline in achievement of basic tasks, slippage in overall work ethic, customer counts dropping and the top performers exiting the company. They are replaced by those who, may be well intentioned but whose efforts are ill-fated as the culture continues to slide deeper into the Trap with little chance of rebounding.  Even though leaders caught in the Trap may receive coaching or retraining, the inferior cultural environment has become standardized and integrated into the operational norms of the organization and is therefore ineffective. The de-motivation of leaders who still maintain high levels of accountability and a commitment to excellence is all but inevitable.

High performing teams recognize the value of strong leadership, high standards and a desire to succeed. In the absence of these attributes, the organization is left with those who have substandard expectations and who may not understand the required diligence and motivation it takes to be successful.  In other words, the organization is left in the hands of people caught in the Mediocrity Trap.

How to Avoid the Mediocrity Trap

1. Be Decisive and Quick

Mediocrity erodes the company’s culture of excellence and accountability, which is a key lever in business achievement. When you have leaders who are caught in the Mediocrity Trap, you must take steps quickly to address the situation, lest the company suffer by diminishing excellent sources of talent and worse yet, sustaining possible long-term damage to the reputation of the company from internal and external customers. They are impacted by the loss of quality and weakened levels of service and may be unwilling or unable to accept the current business relationship.

2. Mistakes Happen – Remedy Them

If there are managers that consistently have high turnover, or are always complaining about how their staff underperforms, look closely at that manager’s behavior toward their staff and how they hire and train their workers. Usually when this consistency exists, the manager needs to be coached and retrained and hopefully reformed. This enables stronger team cohesion and an increase in performance and desired results.

3. Pursue Excellence with a Passion

There used to be an old saying, “It’s good enough for government work”.  It was referring to the old perception that those who worked for the government were not concerned about doing things right or were willing to settle for something less than excellence.  In other words, mediocrity.

As a leader, you must ask yourself if the word “Excellence” is an essential part of your organization’s lexicon and fully integrated into its goals and communication platforms. If so, pursue it by setting realistic goals that stretch you as a leader and your organization as a unit. The ability to set clear expectations and high standards while holding self and others accountable to meet them, are key attributes of a constructive leader. Remember, the key ingredients engaging an organization are a sense of enthusiasm and a passion for quality exhibited by its leadership in word and deed. As Norman Vincent Peale said, “There is a real magic in enthusiasm. It spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment.”

 4. Mitigate Mediocrity With Practical Approaches

Recall that mediocrity is the result of staying safe and familiar. Therefore as a leader do not settle for mediocrity in yourself or in those you work with and never settle for anything less than what you really want, need or have asked for.  A few key thoughts:

• Do things differently from others who obtain mediocre results.
• Make and communicate clear plans but always be flexible and make changes when necessary to get optimum results.
• Be self-motivated and encourage it in others.
• Accountability is the antithesis of mediocrity.  Get yourself an accountability partner.  This is someone who can help you stay on track toward reaching your goals and creating a life and business by design rather than default. Accountability partners are not moral giants, rather fellow strugglers who sympathize either because they have struggled through it themselves or because they have successfully counseled those who have.
• Pay attention to your culture.  A negative, defensive culture equals mediocre results and unhappy people.  Ask yourself how your organizational culture is impacting your results? Ask yourself if any of these are prevalent in your organization and take steps to address them:
  • Politics and finger pointing?
  • Frustration and miscommunication
  • Disillusioned employees and disconnected leaders?
  • Mediocre results?

So what’s the bottom line?  Constant observation and diligence are required to identify the early signs in corrosive organizational performance, which lead to mediocrity in individuals and teams. Once recognized, move quickly to extract the infected elements from the culture. To turn a phrase, “mediocrity never sleeps” and once introduced to a culture, spreads quickly and, many times, unnoticed. If you fall into the Mediocrity Trap, work tirelessly to get out of it. Tosan’s fieldwork has many examples of clients and cultures that can no longer differentiate peak performance from “the way we do things around here.”

Leaders who are successful at escaping the Trap or avoiding it altogether, guide their employees in both word and deed and do so with enthusiasm and passion.  This serves as the antidote for reversing the spread of mediocrity. Good leaders operate like Phidias, the Greek sculptor. They understand that quality work is not an accident. It’s a deliberate focus that starts with high personal standards. Constructive leaders don’t settle for mediocrity. Not in others. Not in themselves. They know when “good enough” is not good enough.

Authored by Jesse Brooks

In Tosan’s working sessions with clients, we teach participants about the lifecycle of an organization, which evolves in three stages: the formative stage, the normative stage, and the integrative stage. The focus when discussing emerging culture is the formative stage because these are the start-up years; filled with trial and error, chaos, excitement, and energy. This is the stage when patterns and formulas are developed, which eventually become the metal girders of your organizational edifice.

Many don’t grasp just how important it is for the longevity of their organization to “get it right” from the very beginning. The more a group understands about its mission, the better the mechanisms put in place to contend with “external adaptation and internal integration,” (Schein, 1992) and consequently the more likely the organization will continue to develop and enhance their business while enduring the normative and integrative stages of their lifecycle. The adage of “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” most certainly applies to leaders who provide quality input and constructive, long-term focus for their organizations in the foundational phases of culture building.

In the beginning, to coin a biblical phrase, forming an organization starts with the founder’s personal ideals; what they want the company to be, how it will fit into the business world, what role it will play, how it is managed, etc. These form the basis for how individuals will engage within the organization and begins to shape the culture that emerges. Herb Kelleher, the founder and longtime CEO of Southwest Airlines, was so adamant about his conviction that the company should serve the employees and not vice versa, that he created and infused the culture of his airline with that tenet, despite being contrarily advised. This led to a organization that not only had huge successes and corresponding profit margins, but consistently topped the list of being one of the best organizations to work for. Kelleher exemplifies how the beliefs, feelings, values, and experiences of the founder, especially during the formative stage, are typically imbued throughout the business in perpetuity, whether this is done on a conscious level or not.

Now, assuming that the founder cannot accomplish their intended goals by his/herself, or decides they can accomplish more if they collectivize the talents of like-minded individuals, the next step is to bring together a core group of leaders with the task of creating a common vision. We assume they all understand and accept that the organization is worth the investment of time, capital, emotion, and risk.

At this point there are numerous ways in which to veer off the course toward a constructive culture, because so much relies on the cohesion and trust within this group of leaders. The focus at this point is about sustaining productivity, teamwork and task-based execution that will propel the organization into maturation. Yet, something as seemingly inoffensive as a difference of opinion within the group or one member exhibiting out-of-the-box creativity can be erroneously (or correctly) perceived as an intragroup threat. At this stage they may not yet have developed the proper mechanisms, in this case how to engage and resolve conflicts, in order to effectively assess the significance of this perceived threat. They trust in, and default to, their own personal values and principles to navigate the cultural turbulence.

Foundationally, the crux of creating a constructive culture relies on the self-awareness and determination of the founder; and the leadership team and further requires they set-up systems for sustainability and performance while navigating constant growth, challenges and changes. The leadership team must adopt a process orientation mindset that provides a comprehensive perspective to the entire organization. This allows them to better gauge the successes and failures of the organizational culture.

Every organization has unique guiding values and principles and their own set of organizational and behavioral factors, which, taken as a whole, contribute to and foster a distinctive culture. Tosan recognizes this, and approaches the inimitable set of inputs, which must be analyzed to gain insights about their effectiveness on the organization. This requires the assistance and support of the organization’s leaders, who then can help to identify the proper levers for development. Thereby significantly increasing the likelihood the organization’s culture will emerge as constructive, and that is the culture that will become normalized and integrated across the organization.

Tosan believes that engaged employees are a force multiplier in increasing the value of process and technology investment.  Our simplified position is that you can buy the best technology, and you can fine-tune your processes with Six Sigma, LEAN and Kaizen to drive toward excellence, but not without engaged employees using the technology, within excellent process, can you sustain and maximize your investments.

Here is the slide we presented to discuss this concept.

People Process and Technology

Given that insight, Tosan has done a tremendous amount of work helping companies improve their process, through their people. Yet as nuanced and complex as we know people and teams can be, so is process.

An organization may have a set process for delivering an outcome. But more often than not, if you ask each of the people what takes place in each step of the process, you will get a different story. One way to address this is in how an organization builds their processes and manages their execution. Tosan has had the pleasure of working with Business Genetics at doing just this.

In addition to process definition, Tosan has also found that failure to continually improve process often stems from leaders, individuals and teams not truly understanding the concept of process. While this may at first seem surprising, keep in mind that process is a new model of operations overlaid on the antiquated, yet still dominate  functional organization of today.

Companies today are still largely organized by the hierarchical, and silo-based functions that originated with the industrial age and military structures. While it can prove very functional to have Finance, HR, R&D, Sales, Technology and the like in their tidy lanes, today’s need for rapid workflows delivering quality outcomes has given rise to process. This allows a workflow to be accomplished with the best inputs from various areas, guided by controls and mechanisms, to output a quality product or service.

To address this nuanced, but crucial shift in mindset, Tosan is launching a business improvement simulation to help organizations, leaders and teams reboot their perspectives and maximize their use of process, even with their functional structure still in place.

We will be piloting this new offering in Denver this spring. If you are interested in attending, please contact us directly. We’d love to gain your insights as we develop this product.

For a baseline, The U.K. Health and Safety Commission developed one of the most commonly used definitions of safety culture:

“The product of individual and group values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies, and patterns of behaviour that determine the commitment to, and the style and proficiency of, an organization’s health and safety management”

Tosan would focus this a bit by saying that the values, assumptions, and expectations of groups and individuals define the parameters and boundaries for behaviors. If these boundaries establish a strong value for life and health, a safe work environment is the outcome and can be sustained.

To help organizations improve their safety metrics, Tosan collaborates with them to understand their existing cultural foundation that supports safe behavior. We do this by looking at organizational results that illustrate adherence and execution on safe behaviors. These results are then researched more thoroughly to understand the driving values, assumptions and expectations that are driving these behaviors. The combination of these understandings gives us clear insight into how and why an organization is achieving its current levels of safety.

To impact safety results, we work with clients to identify what behaviors would increase their specific safety results and then work back, or down, to define the necessary parameters that support these new behaviors. This change takes place at the cultural level by understanding how existing assumptions, values, and/or expectations are establishing a behavior that circumvents safety. Then, we can expose the cultural factors that are inhibiting the organization’s safety and drive change from the culture up.

To help you begin looking at your organization’s propensity for safety, think about where your company is as a whole, and then at the team level, how would you rate on the following safety behavior markers:

–   Teamwork

–   Respect and Inclusion

–   Fairness in both reward and punishment

–   Group, and cross-functional communications

–   Civility in language

–   Trust between supervisors and employees

–   Job satisfaction

–   Feedback and recognition

–   Use of threat or fear

If you identify your organization as being poor at a marker (rather than strong), what is the root cause? What assumptions are at play? What does positive change look like?

Obviously, performing a cultural intervention to improve safety is not as cut-and-dry as this outline, but these basics can help to identify the key factors for change for you and your organization to consider.

Should you find yourself wanting to better understand where your organizations culture is supporting and challenging safe behaviors, drop us a note, we’d be happy to open a dialog in helping you succeed.

Stay safe.

This begins with the behaviors of our principal consultants. One of the building blocks of our approach is our belief that leaders create and define the organization for all other employees. Part of how our leadership models the way is to regularly give lectures on accepted organizational development theories and models, and discuss these in depth with the entire staff. This serves as a method of reinforcing the founding tenants and mission of our organization, as well as maintaining a base level of subject comprehension and applied theories among the staff. Thankfully, even when our travel schedules take us away from the office, we have these sessions using interactive online technology.

As part of a larger employee development initiative, all Tosan employees have taken the behavioral-based surveys we give to clients. This provides employees with an inside knowledge of the tools we use, but it also allows us to see how our own behaviors may be effecting our approach to work and interactions with co-workers and clients. We then use this input to develop personal action plans to strengthen the productive and stop or lessen the unproductive behaviors we each tend toward.

Furthermore, we are encouraged to share the results of our survey openly with each other. This allows us to more effectively implement personal changes that will not only make us better employees, but it can also provide useful insights about how to best engage with our co-workers and strengthen teamwork overall. We have also all taken the “Myers-Briggs Type Indicator” which further allows for understanding of how to best work together as a team. We also periodically conduct team survival simulations, and then we use a team assessment tool to provide feedback real-time as to how we believe we are all working together.

In the office, a standard of collaboration has been established amongst our team. Rarely is one employee given a task that requires solitary work. All projects, programs, clients, and marketing are delegated to a lead person with an expectation they collaborate with and utilize the support of the rest of the staff. This ensures that work is being filtered through different idea chains and work revisions before a final product is given to clients. The major benefit to such a collaborative working environment is that it constantly reinforces our reliance on team while emphasizing the role of the individual in the process sequence. For Tosan, this allows us to create and support an environment of Accountability within our own organization; everyone owns their respective tasks while still providing ample opportunities for everyone to contribute to the firm’s overall success.

Tosan, having less than 15 employees, gains many benefits from our intimate office environment. We have the ability to communicate with each other by simply talking across the room; if we need to have an impromptu meeting to go over a project it is simple and easy to arrange; it allows us flexibility and freedom to work with individual schedules in order to accomplish tasks and prepare projects. However, along with these benefits, also come a few challenges that must be managed in order to work successfully as a unit.

One pitfall is that conflicts are not always dealt with constructively. It is common for teams, especially ones who work together closely, to know each other very well, both inside and outside of work. This can contribute to a tendency for arguments and disagreements to become personal rather than rooted in task orientation. Sometimes avoiding a conflict rather than facing it head on and finding solutions is the easier choice, especially during large projects when there is work to be done. This undermines the effectiveness of the team, and because of the intimate nature of our office the effects of this are greatly amplified. In order to overcome this obstacle we have set a clear expectation of each other. When there is a conflict the staff members who are not directly involved are to address the situation directly; they should encourage and facilitate, if needed, a dialogue between the involved parties to talk through the disagreement.

Another pitfall we have encountered is maintaining good communication while traveling, which can be a difficult problem to tackle in many organizations. An example: Some of us are consulting in Spain, while someone else is conducting a follow-up session in Pennsylvania, still others are at the office in Denver developing new marketing content, and others are traveling from California to meet colleagues in Detroit to set up for a program later that week. Maintaining continuity and good communication regarding ongoing work and projects can be hard with everyone in different locations and time zones. It is easy to overlook or neglect pieces of work, or to forget to include someone in a communication regarding the ongoing projects.

We have begun developing and implementing solutions to this problem. We have set-up shared calendars to track client engagements, vacation schedules, marketing deadlines, and other important business dates, we have set up remote access to a centralized server where we store important documents for project collaboration, we have implemented a cloud based customer database and have developed a process for titling and versioning documents to allow for better collaboration and co-authoring of documents. Even with these technological solutions, we still maintain an agreement to interface with each other when possible, regardless of time zones; as this provides us with the best opportunities to clarify expectations of each other and ask questions regarding the ongoing projects and collaborative efforts.

Every company has a unique growth pattern which aligns with their corporate standards and long-term goals and where obstacles must be overcome or mitigated in order to accomplish tasks. Tosan is not an exception to this notion.

We coach our clients to create a constructive environment within their organizations in order to engage their employees in achieving corporate goals. This requires Tosan to lead by example. We constantly strive to provide superior training internally for our employees by reinforcing the fundamentals of organizational theory, allowing personal experiences and ideas to permeate our culture, and to create a highly supportive and collaborative work environment that supports both our mission as a company and the deliverables we promise to our clients. We are not perfect, and we have many of the same challenges and struggles we see within our client organizations. The key is to be aware of those similarities, and consistently and constantly strive to overcome and work through them together as a team.

So why would an organizational effectiveness firm with a majority of our experience in Nuclear, Fossil and T&D be speaking, much less co-chairing?

Well, the first connection is the overarching industry of Energy. As our traditional resources are challenged, and regulations progress, all aspects of the Energy industry are evaluating how renewables will fit into their product mix. But whether an operator or owner chooses Wind, Solar or Bio, it is still in the pursuit of safe and compliant energy produced and sold as efficiently as possible.

This key position is what links Tosan to the Renewables world. Manufacturing, deploying, operating and managing renewable resources requires the same core tenants of running Fossil or Nuclear assets, as well as Transmission and Distribution operations. These key factors include safety as a leading factor for success, strong process and procedural orientation, and regulatory awareness and innovation.

This is what Tosan excels at – working with organizations across their entire enterprise to drive high levels of sustainable operational effectiveness. We do this through the mix of Organizational Understanding, interventions and products targeted toward Leaders & Individuals as well as Teams, and evaluation of existing Processes.

For a sneak peak at the discussion we’ll be having, you can enlarge the comparison below. Or, if you’re in the area, stop by and say hello (BOOTH NUMBER 438). We look forward to being a part of and serving this rapidly growing sector.

We talk a lot about corporate cultures and how humans are the driving force that shape, bend, twist and form them. We also know that people are the single greatest contributing factor in achieving and sustaining the success of an organizations performance.  Human-centered, cultural and behavioral focused efforts drive innovation, collaboration and promote personal and team development within organizational culture.

Yet a key and often-overlooked aspect of such efforts is the actual, physical environments in which we work. Companies with insufficient work environments tend to find their cultures struggling to move forward. Poor environments simply do not motivate employees. Perhaps a change in environment is what’s needed.

Have you ever walked into an office, perhaps your own, and immediately feel like you have had the energy sucked right out you? No, I’m not talking about the 5 cups of coffee crash. I’m talking about the environment you just entered. You’ve seen it: the low ceilings, the maze of cubicles, bad lighting, and no windows. If grey was a feeling, that’s what grey would feel like. Tosan’s work has taken us to many such environments and every time I’m given the “office tour” I think to myself, why is this the standard? Why is this acceptable?  Are these the reasons their communications suffer or their teamwork lacks and innovation moves at the pace of a snail? They are not likely the only reasons, but we contend they are significant influences.

Why is the work environment an influence? I like to think the answer is rather simple: these environments’ allow your employees to hide. They don’t foster collaboration, innovation, communication or change. They hinder your employee’s ability to align with your mission and vision. Yet inadequate work environments have become the standard for so many companies.

We’ve found that organizations wanting to maintain and foster a strong culture or those seeking to move forward into a stronger constructive culture must have an office space that reflects their goals. Companies who provide workplaces that better support collaboration, learning and socializing see higher levels of employee engagement, relationship building, brand equity and productivity than those with less supportive work environments. Edgar Shein in, Organizational Culture and Leadership,” describes a number of embedding mechanisms that help shape culture. One of these mechanisms is the design of physical space and buildings.  Remember: your work environment reflects your culture.

I hate to follow the trend of using Google as an example, however ideal their culture is for them, they illustrate the optimal work environment, which models their cultural beliefs. They built their offices with their employees in mind. The result is an office environment that supports socializing, collaboration and learning. For example, they have thinking rooms. Yes, a room to let leaders and employees just think about the possibilities for innovation. Google has bicycles and scooters for efficient travel between meetings; dogs; lava lamps; massage chairs; large inflatable balls, sharing cubes, yurts and huddle rooms – and very few solo offices. The result is a healthy culture congruent with their beliefs. Google is a trendsetter; therefore their office environment must embody that.

So what’s the ROI?

According to the Gallup Management Journal, in a national employee survey, they confirmed uncomfortable work environments make for disgruntled employees. Also, according to a Gensler survey of the connection between workplace design and business performance the following was found:

• 90% of knowledge workers agree that workplace design affects productivity
• 70% of project specific knowledge is gained from peer interaction
• Knowledge is transferred more between people than any other sources of information by five times (5x)
• 32% of knowledge workday is spent in collaboration

Tosan’s partner and environment designer, Hmarq Studios, says the number one reason companies come to them is to seek a more effective work environment and gain more productivity from their employees. Hmarq Studios believes designing the right work environment promotes team building and collaboration, which results in a highly engaged and more efficient workforce.

If you’re seeking culture change within your organization, having the right leaders in place is crucial, gaining mass support is a must, training is essential and typically a change of environment is the missing, yet compulsory set piece needed to fully integrate your change efforts! Remember, your office environment reflects your culture and you are asking your employees to move with you, the right office environment can go a long way.

My question seems to be a straightforward line of thought however, like so many grandiose, underdeveloped ideas, once spoken these thoughts tend to lose their luster. So I set out to do some modest research, attempting to indentify what theoreticians believe when it comes to how best to manage emerging cultures.

I consulted Organizational Development (OD) text, numerous online resources, the thoughts’ of colleagues and fellow practitioners, and even the personal insight of an iconic management professor, but no answer seemed complete and I found no major body of research concerning the management of emerging cultures.

Why? Is there no set of OD guidelines or rules that would allow a start-up’s leaders to prepare themselves when their new culture does emerge so they already have strong mechanisms in place? Or are we as practitioners of OD condemned to be reactionary entities in a constant buzzard-like holding pattern waiting until a potential client recognizes they have a need for change?

The best answer I found, however insipid it may seem to me, leads to a central precept of organizational theory; that culture is most influenced by the values of the founders and leaders. The values they formulate and how clearly they communicate and emulate the norms, mission, vision, etc. of the organization or their failure to do so, is the single greatest factor in ascertaining success.

In my emerging culture query, I will only accept the influence of leadership as part of the answer because it prompts another question concerning the genesis of a culture: If leadership is primarily responsible for the successful assimilation of a culture, then should we assume that emerging organizational culture begins with the leadership as well?

Management icon Edgar Schein states, “Culture is a learned product of a group experience and is, therefore, to be found only where there is a definable group with a significant history.” According to Schein, the number within a group is not as important as the amount of shared experiential products between members. So, if a group fulfills this criterion, then the culture does indeed formulate through leaders. As a practitioner of OD consulting, one should be able to manage an emerging culture through this group of leaders.

One final consideration though: Does culture have to be present before someone takes actions to shape it?

I know some of your immediate reactions, “How can you shape something that does not exist?”

Try this on: If you have ever worked at a company that has standards and/or behaviors that drive you crazy, or may not be congruent with your beliefs and work ethic, you say, “If ever I start a company I will make sure never to do “x” to my employees,”?

In that moment of enlightenment, you are preparing your future professional self by setting guidelines in which your theoretical organization will better function based on your beliefs…