CULTURE AS AN ASSET AND LIABILITY TO ORGANIZATION
Introduction
Culture is a way of doing things, and organizational culture can be defined as the way of dealing with customers how to treat other employees and the ways on how the managers and leaders in a particular organization should motivate, develop and reward people. However, most companies should take measures to come up with an organizational culture, which is a system of common meaning held by staff that differentiates their organization from others. The type of organizational culture that is created by any institution should either serve as a serious liability or a major asset to the organization.
Culture as a liability to an organization
Culture is a liability to an organization in the sense that culture can slow down the changes that organization need to make, this prevents the organization from changing as fast as possible, for instance, assuming that an organization has a strong culture which states that the customers should be served from 8 Am to 5 pm, everyone would be coming to work at eight and leaves at 5, in case the world changes, and the organization must enhance the competition such that the customers should be handled for 24 hours in seven days a week, then, employees may be used to 8-5 rule and may not be willing to change.
Organization Liability
In some instances, an organization may be a liability to a particular culture, in such a manner that some organizations may demand that their employees should not marry, thus remaining as bachelor’s and/ or spinsters, this condition may differ from employees’ and their culture. In such cases, it is upon the management to realize that culture came decades before the organization; thus, people’s culture should never be violated. (Schein, 2010)
If a company that has been doing well for decades starts sliding, the board may start looking for new management that will bring the changes to the organization. If the new management such as the CEO tries to change the organization’s culture at once to address the issues that made the organization to begin sliding, employees may feel that their organization has no problem at all and may also feel that their institution has been doing well for all those decades because they were doing things their way yet they were not involved in decision-making by the new management, hence the new management, according to the employees are the one who does not know How employees are used to doing their things thus changes may not take place leading to company sliding even more. (Collins, 2014)
Some of the few of strong indicators that a certain culture in an organization is good or not, is by determining whether that culture is good, is being visible or not at board level, these indicators includes: making partnership with function roles and line, this will make sure that the internal checks and balances behave well, the next indicator is being accountable by holding to account for both the compliance and the performance, being transparent, with no surprise culture is as well another strong indicator of a strong culture, An environment for all problems to be addressed should be set, by avoiding being arrogant by the organization.
Culture as an asset to an organization
On the other side, culture can be considered to be an asset to a particular organization, this is by the fact that when there are different points of ideas being discussed, many views can be developed thus leading to a growth of the organization in many different directions, every culture, can, therefore, be made to their experiences, thus if everything was monotonous, things would be boring, but if anything is added, such as color, then, things can be seen from different dimensions.
Culture has a very effective bearing on business in terms of aspects of the environment. Culture affects people’s way of doing things in critical ways; this is because it plays an important role in forming behaviors and values, which will be involved in the interaction to the altitude, needs, and norm of groups or individuals that result in different behaviors. (Frost, 2012)
International managers should understand the culture, especially when there is the existence of cultural differences between the country hosting them and the home country that is a multinational enterprise. Understanding cultural differences thoroughly enables both effective management by making sure that people behave according to the organization’s appropriate ways, and also, they will be able to interpret the different behaviors, thus making them interact effectively, thus making them avoid misunderstanding and enabling them to be acceptable by others. Both the employees, also called human resources and the material resources, contribute a lot by playing crucial roles in the failure or success of the organization in a certain different environmental culture since they are greatly involved in turning plans into actions, using physical resources such as technology and machinery. (Schein, 2010)
Culture as an asset to the organization:
One can always measure how the organization upholds its strong values through tools such as tools for assessing cultural, and this enables one to determine the extent to which both the employees and the organization, in case of the performance measure, whether they can stand on what the organization believes is right at all time. Since the management and directors of the organization usually reviews some of the important drivers of the success of the organization, it is very important for them to accomplish some objective data because, at times, culture can be subjective, by doing this, directors and organization’s management will be able to balance the culture with other crucial drivers of the business.
The organization’s behavior, system, and symbols usually send a message to the organization; it is, therefore, the board’s important job to test this message. If the board is included in any assessment of the culture, the organization should be asked the kind of message you portray to them through the major decision being made by the board, and they should as well mention the areas in which they think that the board is much interested in. The board should also hold talks with their fellow directors, to check whether the decision they usually make facilitating towards the organization’s value-driven through the board’s behavior; this can be referred to as self-reflection. (Frost, 2012)
Management
The organization’s management should always give their employees the priority to see everything that they are planning for the ‘public,’ this means that any advert that is to be made, may it be television spot, or even website, it should be shared by the most senior executives, to inform center working staffs to clients representatives in a certain organization’s branch. Allowing the employees to have the first viewing rights enables them to familiarize themselves with the information; hence, in case a customer asks any question, they can comfortably respond. Employees should be informed about the discovery and research methods as they occur; they should also be given the whole view of the industry and the bank. Furthermore, employees should be shown the new products before they are even launched since they are the ones who will be involved in interacting with the organization’s customers, thus promoting the company. (Landrum, 2010)
Organizations’ culture should encourage and respect the development of professionalism. Investment should be made on employees so as to increase development and growth on their job, thus increasing employees’ talent pool and capabilities of the organization. A competitive advantage is added by training people and organizations to encourage a good learning environment so as to properly address challenges that develop. (Corlosquet-Habart, Gehin, Janssen, & Manca, 2015)
The organizations’ culture to celebrate and encourage superstars across the organization and to reward and celebrate the superstars’ achievements will lead to more success. It not all about assigning a monthly employee; the organizations’ management should find employees who are doing their job right and celebrate those who are willing to live the value of the company, even when nobody is watching them.
Organization Policies
An organization should implement tough policies and conversations to make employees know their responsibilities and be aware of how they are expected to act; the organizations’ culture can impact its bottom line. A company culture whose aims are aligned to fulfill the organization’s goals can enhance competition, thus outperforming their competitors. An organization should remain focused and truthful to their way of doing things to enhance their culture and keep enforcing it so as not to be weakened. Investing in the institution culture helps a lot to engage in the workforce and to come up with an organization’s products brands and customers. Therefore, an organization’s culture is one of the biggest liability and strongest asset.
Conclusion:
Although the world claims to become homogeneous in terms of the culture, there are a lot of differences that exist between the cultures of different nations. The organization’s coming together worldwide, also known as globalization of the economy, has brought out the differences among the nations to be more resonant than it has ever been because the more unique a nation is, the more different it becomes from the other nations of the world, hence increasing the challenges to conducting business amongst these nations, this makes it hard to deal with each other. Certain factors in the organizations distinguish any nation from another. Thus, it becomes more complicated when doing business. This implies that most individuals, whether an employee collectively as an organization, always needs to prepare, the inability of any organization to manage and effect smooth changeover are all at risk of failing.
