6 Signs Your Corporate Culture Is Sick – And What To Do About It

Corporate culture describes an organization’s working environment: how people interact and treat each other, what values they respect and what principles they stick to. Every company has its unique culture but how do you know whether it’s healthy or not?

The purpose of corporate culture is to enable the achievement of goals. It is the epicenter of an organization, the inner engine that drives a company to success. And when your “engine” is finely tuned, the company delivers high performance. But some organizations leave their culture up to chance and then get surprised when they fail to engage employees and successfully execute the company’s strategy.

There are six tell-tale signs that your culture is sick and needs attention.

• Isolation: there is no clear communication between leaders and employees, they work in isolation.
• Scapegoating: whenever something goes wrong, no one wants to take responsibility and looks for a scapegoat instead.
• Gossips: it becomes common for employees to discuss people behind their backs and the leader encourages this practice.
• Secrets: secrets and information hiding lead to inequities and undermine the overall company performance.
• No employee development: the company is not interesting in training employees and helping them grow.
• Only leaders get the cream: leaders get the best tasks for themselves and get all praises while delegating crappy jobs to everyone else.

So what can you do to fix a sick culture? Here are six steps you can take to get your company’s health and vitality back.

1. Value both personal and organizational success

Always find time to praise your employees’ personal progress. At the same time, emphasize that team members should put the company’s goals first and commit to what’s best for their organization.

2. Encourage optimism

Every company faces tough issue from time to time. Encourage your employees to face them with optimism and see opportunities in difficulties.

3. Promote diversity and open-mindedness

Create cross-functional and mixed-aged groups. Welcome and honor different opinions. Diversity makes people more open to new ideas and drives innovation.

4. Lead, don’t rule

Be a leader who inspires, not just another top manager who bosses people around.

5. Focus on employees’ strengths

Employees who use their strengths are 6 times more likely to be engaged in their work, perform better, and are less likely to leave.

6. Share what matters

Share all important information with your employees as well as your passion to achieve company’s goals. When people are informed, they tend to feel more confident and come up with more innovative ideas that will fuel your company’s progress.