Corporate culture – a study in Psychology or Sociology?

In researching the approaches most companies take to defining and helping companies improve corporate culture, I’ve found many of them focus on helping organizations either hire for certain traits, or coaching employees to fit in better within an existing infrastructure.

While I cannot argue with this psychological approach, I prefer to look at it from the reverse.  Sure, hiring for certain characteristics is key, but where there is nature, there is also nurture.  And the environment in which your employees live, has just as profound of an impact on their success as the traits they bring to your company.  So rather than trying to fix the employee, shouldn’t companies also seek to spend less time molding certain behaviors and more time looking in the mirror to see what they could be doing to bring out the best in their employees?

Lets say you’ve already hired the best and the brightest – you’ve brought on the critical thinkers and you’ve given them what you consider to be the opportunity to excel and shine.  But how do you motivate them to put their best foot forward?  How do you get them to believe in your company and be committed to it as if it were their own?

You have too give them a reason to drink the Koolaid.
Employees want to believe, they really do.   And no doubt you want this too.  But somewhere between desire and reality companies tend to fall down – especially as they grow beyond the initial passionate group of zealots that founded the company to begin with (in my experience this happens for the first time at about employee #30).   

Three are a number of ways to go about it – but the first one that comes to my mind is something many employers tend to think is a given. "I mean we pay them every two weeks – isn’t that enough???"  But the truth is, employees need to believe they are truly valued for their contributions to making the company soar.  Sounds simple? It’s tougher than you think.  Company softball teams and Friday afternoon happy hours aside – it takes a commitment to your employees and a respect for their ideas and their lives both in and outside the business to make this work.   

The good news is your employees want to believe in your organization and they are dying to drink the Koolaid.  You just have to give them a reason to.