Culture whiplash!

Culture does not change because we desire to change it.  Culture changes when the organization is transformed; the culture reflects the realities of people working together every day.  ~Frances Hesselbein

Recently I met with a new client, a board of directors, for the first time.  I joined the last 15 minutes of their meeting so when I entered the room they were all seated around the conference table.  I walked in the door, and what I felt next I would describe as culture whiplash (an abrupt jerk, jolt or snap).  They were all white men between the ages of around 40 and 65.  There was one woman in the room, a staff member, not a board member.  I haven't seen that degree of homogeneous board composition in a number of years.  I was quite literally taken aback.

I live in downtown Chicago.  One of my personal pastimes is trying to identify various languages being spoken as I walk down the street. Diversity is a way of life.  So a lack of diversity in a culture, if I'm not expecting it, really gets my attention.

I was distracted as I sat down to meet with this board and I tried to refocus my thoughts on the task at hand, but it was a challenge.  The distraction was not coming from the fact that I didn't fit into their homogeneous make-up, it was coming from the fact that what I expected was in stark contrast from what I experienced.

Does your organizational culture give someone whiplash the first time they walk through your doors?  Research tells us that as individuals, we have seven seconds to make a first impression.  I'm wondering if we only have seven seconds for our organization's culture to also make a first impression.

I think that what our organization's culture is communicating can sneak up on us.  When we're immersed in an organization over a period of years we don't always sense what's really changed, or not changed, over time.  Fortunately, in my board of director's scenario, after interviewing a number of the board members I learned that they did recognize their homogeneity needed to change.  Although I'm not sure they realized how much of an impact it could really have on someone who was walking into it for the first time.

In the Fast Company article, "Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch," Shawn Parr asks, "Do you run into your culture every day?  Does it inspire you, or smack you in the face and get in your way, slowing and wearing you down?  Is it overpowering or does it inspire you to overcome challenges?  It's important to understand what is driving your culture."

What do people expect when they encounter your organization's culture?  Because I work almost exclusively mission-driven organizations, I find that the culture expectations are quite high for people (employees, clients, vendors, etc.) coming into the organization for the first time.  How are you managing those expectations? 

If those expectations aren't being managed then maybe you are unknowingly giving people a form of culture whiplash when they walk in your door.  The culture reflects the realities of people working together every day.  What do people expect of those realities and what do they experience?