By Gary Miller, director of Human Resource Process Transformation and Integration at DePaul University
“I always viewed culture as one of
those things you talked about, like marketing and advertising. It was one of
the tools that a manager had at his or her disposal when you think about an
enterprise. ...The thing I have learned at IBM is that culture is everything."1
-Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.
Organizational culture can easily be
dismissed as another management fad or the latest gimmick to come out of the consulting
field. Granted — like many other workplace concepts, such as work-life balance,
employee engagement, and pay equity — the concept of culture is somewhat vague
and can be difficult to measure. Yet, a growing number of organizations have
discovered the power of fostering an intentionally positive workplace
environment.2 Catholic college and university leaders, in
particular, may be interested in the positive impact of an intentional culture
on an institution’s Catholic identity.
In their March 2016 article in the Harvard Business Review, Dave Ulrich and Wayne Brockbank advance the practicality of creating intentional
workplace cultures by making the concept much more tangible. They write that rather
than thinking about culture as “seen through symbols, rituals, stories and
other organizational events” or as it “shows up in the values, norms, unwritten
rules, emotional responses, or flows of how things are done in a company,”
there’s a much more pragmatic view.
The authors propose in their article that
an organization’s intentional culture should be built on “the identity of a
company as perceived by its best customers, representing an outside-in view of
culture. For example, Amazon wants to be known for disciplined execution of
customer purchases; Apple for design and simplicity; Marriott for exceptional
service; Google for innovation; and so forth. These brands or identities then
become infused throughout the company through how employees and managers think,
behave, and feel.”
This approach not only serves as a
practical way to connect employees to brand and mission, but it also has the
advantage of being authentic. For instance, a sporting goods store that hires
applicants based on their passion for hunting, fishing, and outdoor activities
and encourages employees to share their enthusiasm and knowledge with
customers, conveys a certain genuineness, and is, in fact, authentic with
regard to its brand.
The
First Step in Creating Culture
This column focuses on the first of the
three steps Ulrich and Brockbank provide to develop a practical and authentic
culture: “Define the Right Culture.” To do this, Catholic College and
university leaders— from the president to the human resources director to the
student affairs director— need to ask: “What is the shortlist of what we want
to be known for by our best customers?” (Catholic higher education
institutions might substitute students, faculty, administrators, alumni, or
donors for “customers.”)3
Not only should the shortlist items
reflect the institution’s core brand, I suggest another consideration should be
the topics that generate enthusiasm among the college’s leaders.4 Given
these considerations, one item to consider for your shortlist might be community. I refer to community in a
positive sense, in which people strongly identify with the mission (the common
cause) and work together in a collaborative fashion to accomplish goals related
to furthering the mission.
Many Catholic college and university
leaders extol the importance of community. For instance, Catherine McMahon,
RSM, special assistant to the president for mission and planning at Gwynedd
Mercy University, recognizes its significance in her article on sustaining a
mission-oriented culture. She writes that “mission belongs to the community,
not to any one person or office. . . . [U]ltimately the success of mission
integration depends on the community that embodies it.”5
Defining community identity as part
of the foundation upon which to build a culture may not seem results-oriented
enough for some leaders. Nothing about community, however, suggests that
outcomes aren’t important. Generating more revenue than expense, student
retention, progress toward strategic objectives — all of these are essential
for success and need to be closely monitored. But focusing on the bottom line
isn’t what brings out the best in people. Rather, the quality of their
relationships with co-workers and managers, integration into the workplace
culture, and other such things are key to producing great results. Gallup’s
comprehensive engagement research (as well as the corroborating findings of
many other credible researchers over the past decade) clearly indicate that
great organizational outcomes are directly linked to employees’ experience of
engagement and support in the workplace.6
In fact, some practical notions about what constitutes a healthy
community can be gleaned from standard engagement survey questions.
Not only do employees work better in
a healthy community, but it is critical for student success as well. In his February 7, 2013 Inside Higher Education article, Robert Sternberg described twelve research-validated
risk factors that account for why most students drop out. Among the factors
listed is “disengagement from the university environment” — essentially, a
failure of a student’s integration into the community.
While affinity groups and peer
mentors may help a student’s emotional connection with a college, such things
are not nearly as important as a faculty and staff who want to go the extra
mile to help students, who feel good about the institution, and who demonstrate
collegiality
with their colleagues. To ensure that community is more than just a brand, it
needs to be woven into the fabric of a college environment; it needs to be on
the shortlist.
Fostering a Community
of Persons
Community, being a hallmark of Catholicism
and its social teaching, provides a particular additional reason to include it
on the shortlist for institutions that want to maintain a Catholic identity.
Pope Saint John Paul II wrote in Ex Corde Ecclesiae, (section 21), “A Catholic University pursues its
objectives through its formation of an authentic human community animated by
the spirit of Christ.” He continues in subsequent paragraphs to discuss the
roles of faculty, students, and staff in facilitating community.
Catholic Social Teaching emphasizes
the highest expression of community in its recognition of the workplace as a “community
of persons.” To this end, John Paul II wrote in Centesimus Annus (section 35) that “the purpose of a business firm is not simply to make
a profit, but is to be found in its very existence as a community of persons
who in various ways are endeavouring to satisfy their basic needs, and who form
a particular group at the service of the whole of society.”
The community of persons emphasizes the collaborative nature of work
and the recognition that all workers in an organization are working toward
common ends. John Paul II wrote in the same encyclical (section 43) that “By
means of his work man commits himself, not only for his own sake but also for
others and with others. Each person collaborates in the work of others and for
their good. Man works in order to provide for the needs of his family, his
community, his nation, and ultimately all humanity. Moreover, he collaborates
in the work of his fellow employees, as well as in the work of suppliers and in
the customer's use of goods, in a progressively expanding chain of solidarity.”
Additionally, a community of persons
recognizes the high dignity of the human person – a foundational theme in
Catholic Social Teaching. Section 271 of
the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church expresses the dignity of the person
as relates to work: “The human person
is the measure of the dignity of work: ‘In fact there is no doubt that
human work has an ethical value of its own, which clearly and directly remains
linked to the fact that the one who carries it out is a person.’”
To further understand a community of persons,
consider the alternative extreme that many Americans experience: a society of individuals. According to
Michael Naughton, “a society of individuals will usually be focused on limited
goals such as survival, security, and success.
The enterprise is seen as a zero sum game since when goods are shared,
they are diminished. . . . [T]he principle of equivalence dominates the
landscape, where exchanges are defined in terms of a quid pro quo, and where contracts, not human relationships, attempt
to establish trust. . . . Prudence and judgement
are replaced by managers’ constant referral to procedures and regulations as
the basis of decisions, which are more concerned about process than outcomes.”7
The call for leaders to create communities
of persons “actually expresses the full realization of what a company and
corporation can be. The etymology of the words ‘company’ and ‘companions’ — cum (with) and panis (bread) — suggests ‘breaking bread together.’ The etymology
of the work ‘corporation’ — the Latin corpus
(body) —suggests a group of people ‘united in one body.’”8
After the shortlist items are
identified, leaders can move on to the second step of creating an intentionally
healthy workplace culture: “Translate the ideal customer-centered identity into
behaviors for employees.”9 Before considering the next step,
however, at least one more column will be dedicated to this essential idea of
community and its importance in maintaining a Catholic identity and creating an
authentic culture supportive of the mission.
The opinions
expressed in this column are the author’s alone and do not represent those of
DePaul University or the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities.
Footnotes:
1. Lagace, Martha, “Gerstner: Changing Culture at IBM - Lou
Gerstner Discusses Changing the Culture at IBM ” in HBS Working Knowledge,
December 9, 2002. http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3209.html
2. The alternative to fostering an
intentional culture is to settle for randomly emergent cultures in every
department that are unconsciously shaped by each manager’s disposition. Some of
the companies that have done this well are listed in this Business Insider
article: http://www.businessinsider.com/25-best-corporate-cultures-2014-8
3. Both quotes in this paragraph are
taken from the Ulrich and Brockbank article. The other two steps that Ulrich
and Brockbank present are (1) “translate the ideal customer-centered identity
into behaviors for employees”, and (2) “design the right processes, practices,
and structures for supporting and encouraging those behaviors.” See the article
at https://hbr.org/2016/03/your-company-culture-cant-be-disconnected-from-your-customers
4. In the management classic, Good to Great, Jim Collins discusses the
important role of leaders who are passionate about the contribution their
organization is making to society. He summarizes the concept in an article on
his website:” http://www.jimcollins.com/article_topics/articles/good-to-great.html
5. McMahon, Catherine, RSM. (2014). It Takes a Village:
Creating and Sustaining a Mission-Oriented Culture at a College or University.
In the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, A Mission Officer Handbook: Advancing Catholic Identity and University
Mission, Vol.1.(pp.19-22). CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
6. A sample of studies that show the
relationship between engagement levels and positive business outcomes include:
Harvard Business Review Analytic Services Report:http://www.yorkworks.ca/default/assets/File/analyst-insights-HBR_Achievers%20Report_TheImpactofEmployeeEngagementonPerformance(1).pdf; 2013 Gallup Engagement Survey
Results (see the summary on page 9): http://www.gallup.com/strategicconsulting/163007/state-american-workplace.aspx; Specific Best Practice Employers
Engagement Findings: http://www.apqc.org/sites/default/files/files/Link%20Engagement%20to%20Bus%20Outcomes.pdf; and Towers Watson 2012 Survey: http://www.towerswatson.com/en/Insights/IC-Types/Survey-Research-Results/2012/07/2012-Towers-Watson-Global-Workforce-Study
Given that at least 4 of the Q12 questions seem
to measure employees’ community-like experiences, it could be argued that
employee engagement is at least partially the degree to which an employee is
experiencing community. Consider the research findings of the 2015 Great Places
to Work Survey: https://s3.amazonaws.com/bestworkplacesdb/publications/WO_2015_BestWorkplaces_en.pd
7. Naughton, Michael. The Logic of Gift: Rethinking Business as a
Community of Persons (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2012), pp. 43
& 44.
8.
Vocation of the Business Leader: A Reflection. Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (PCJP). The
document grew out of a seminar sponsored by the John A. Ryan Institute at the
University of St. Thomas (MN) and the PCJP, held in February 2011, called “The
Logic of Gift and the Meaning of Business.” Sec. 57 at https://www.stthomas.edu/media/catholicstudies/center/ryan/publications/publicationpdfs/vocationofthebusinessleaderpdf/PontificalCouncil_4.pdf .
Note that although the text speaks of companies
and corporations, its concepts are to be very broadly interpreted to include
all types of workplaces, as explained in the document’s forward: “The text is intended as an educational
aid that speaks of the “vocation” of the business men and women who act in a
wide range of business institutions: cooperatives, multinational corporations,
family businesses, social businesses, for-profit/non-profit collaborations and
so on.”
9. The second step that Ulrich and
Brockbank present is: “translate the
ideal customer-centered identity into behaviors for employees." See the
article at https://hbr.org/2016/03/your-company-culture-cant-be-disconnected-from-your-customers