Management Perspectives

Ever wondered about the origin of the term ‘culture of a company’? A quick search on the web will show that it is a Western concept. The classical definition of ‘culture of a company’ is- Company culture is how you do what you do in the workplace. It is the sum of your formal and informal systems and behaviours and values, all of which create an experience for your employees and customers. (taken from The Great Place To Work).

Notice how culture applies to employees and customers. This is critical to understanding how all of this pans out in reality. As long as you are an employee or a customer, you are treated in a manner that somehow ‘gets the job done’ without causing too much disruption. It also means that if you are not yet an employee (like a potential employee evaluating the company) you are really not covered by the definition of the company. Similarly, once you are thrown out or leave on your own, you are no longer ‘a part of the culture’ of the company. The same stands true for potential customers or ex customers.

No one really cares about both

Another interesting set of words is ‘formal and informal systems and behaviours and values’. I wonder what an informal system really is. Is it even a thing? An ‘informal system’ has to have an informal mechanism to address transgresses? Who, then, decides what a transgression is and who decides what is the right way to address it (in an informal system)? One of the lines I used to use a lot is, “Culture stems from the top.” In my case, I assumed the mantle of setting culture with my behaviour and my actions. This gives rise to an interesting question—does culture change when leadership changes? In all my previous engagements, there was a direct, clear, and measurable change in the so called behaviour and value system every time there was a change in leadership. Notice, I did not call it a positive or a negative change, because, to me, this is of no consequence. The fact is that with the change in leadership, culture of an organisation changes.

Similarly, employees who are within an organisation under a particular leadership have a set of behaviours and values (not to mention informal systems) that get the job done. When the same individual is thrown out or leaves or is under a different leadership, the set of behaviours and values change. We have all observed this and I am sure I do not have to quote research to prove this. So, is it safe to assume that culture is fluid and dependent on leadership, behaviours, and actions?

Is the definition of culture an absolute for all types of industries, subsidiaries, etc. across the globe? After all, leadership styles, ethnicity, etc. influence local cultures.

And of course, the mother of all questions- what is the culture of a company?

There is another more recent set of events that need to be examined to understand culture. Tech giants (such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc.) along with small entities (especially in publishing) announced redundancies. Even a cursory scan of social media shows that from the smallest entity to the largest giant, the experience of being thrown out has been a stressful and humiliating one. If culture rules the company and as Western thought leaders have told us, “it is the best thing next to sliced bread” then what is causing all the stress? The answer lies in the fundamentals of management that have originated in the so called developed world, located primarily in the Western Hemisphere.

To understand why culture should transcend employment and leadership one has to dig a little deeper in another part of the world. Closer home, there are a number of corporate houses who are known for their work ethics. Notice I did not use the word culture. Among these, the one standing the tallest is the Tata Group. There are many legendary stories about their policies but I will pick just two.

Handling financial crisis

The situation just around the time of World War I was very grim for Tata Group. At the time, Dorabjee Tata, the then Chairman of the group, had gifted a 260 carat (approximate size) diamond to his wife, Meherbai.

To pay salaries of employees, Dorabjee pawned this diamond along with his wife’s other jewellery. The crisis was taken care of and the Tata conglomerate continued to grow, as it does, even today. The diamond was later released, but sold off when Meherbai died of cancer. The proceeds laid the foundation of the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai.

Handling humanitarian crisis

Probably the most painful period in the Tata history was the 26/11 terrorist attacks on their hotels (including other sites) in Mumbai, that resulted in the deaths of many people including their employees. Families were devastated. There is no case-study on how the families were handled both with emotional and financial support and that is the way the Tatas would like to keep it. They do not want to attract publicity nor do they want to shout from the rooftops for what they believe is “the right thing to do.” This is a far cry from how companies today want to garner brownie points for smaller acts. However, the family of every employee who lost his/her life and those who got injured are being looked after by the Tata Group.

Lessons for the corporate world

Actually, there isn’t much to learn from this for most of the Western world. The concept of family and belonging is quite different there. But we, in the East, especially in India, have the opportunity to make a course correction.

‘Corporate America’ gave us the mantra of ‘shareholder value above all else’. CEOs are ‘sacrificed’, minions are ‘slaughtered’, and human capital is expendable as long as investors gain. The East has always had the concept of ‘family’ whether it was familyowned businesses or family-based cultural values. Experience is respected more than educational qualifications, and when one was to retire, one was always (without exception) given some sort of send-off. Retrenchment was treated as breaking a family and they were few until the British arrived.