{"id":907,"date":"2019-06-07T11:38:07","date_gmt":"2019-06-07T11:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/?p=907"},"modified":"2019-06-07T11:38:17","modified_gmt":"2019-06-07T11:38:17","slug":"why-your-corporate-culture-is-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/2019\/06\/07\/why-your-corporate-culture-is-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Your Corporate Culture Is Wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Image by photosforyou from Pixabay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One of the human traits that I tend to forget about (and I believe many with me) is that we ignore well over 99 percent of all the information that our senses receive. If you don\u2019t believe me, take the selective attention test<\/a> as a case in point. In many ways, focusing our mental energy on the few things that really matter is a good thing. At the same time, it makes it hard to identify new things, developments and ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In \nindustry, companies with a strong culture have taken this concept and \napplied it to the organization as a whole. This results in a set of \nrules and constraints, based on a set of beliefs, concerning the things \nthat deserve attention and those that do not. This culture often forms \nthe basis for the company\u2019s success during the first years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \nchallenge, for individuals and for companies alike, is to identify when \nthe \u2018filter\u2019 that we employ in our perception of the world is starting \nto fail. Especially in an age where the pace of change is accelerating, \nrelying on a slow, bottom-up, organic process where new views and \nperspectives are brought into the organization over the course of years,\n is a recipe for failure. By the time the organization as a whole \nrealizes the need for change, the needed change is already old news and \nthe company is perpetually behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenge is that for all \nthe focus on company culture, in practice the company culture is always \nwrong. Company culture, or the set of values, norms and beliefs commonly\n held by the majority of people in the organization, is, in fact, the \nfilter through which everyone in the company sees the world. Because of \nthis, it causes people to ignore those things that are novel and that \nneed to be adopted by the organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n core for any solution to this challenge is based on the central tenet \nof the mindfulness movement: presence. As humans, we run our lives to a \nlarge extent using habits. In fact, some research claims that up to 95 \npercent of the day, we run around mindlessly, controlled by our habits. \nThe notion of presence is concerned with operating in the moment with \nfull focus on the situation at hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second aspect of presence\n is the absence of judgment. We often tend to immediately associate a \njudgment with the situation, the statements by others or the actions of \ncustomers or competitors. The moment you judge, you\u2019re no longer open to\n the new experience. Instead, you\u2019ve pigeonholed it and given it a \nclassification. The challenge, of course, is that this classification is\n based on the old paradigm and consequently the opportunity for \ninnovation and new insights is gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, the third aspect of \npresence is openness to new experiences, ways of working and new forms \nof value exchange. Even if you are present and avoid judgment, you\u2019re \nstill not necessarily open to engage with the new insights. So, \ncuriosity, a willingness to experiment and acceptance of the fact that \nmost experiments will be failures are critical to bringing in new \ninsights into the organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\n an organization, you need to balance exploitation and exploration in \nall aspects of your business. Exploitation is doing what you know works \nand generates the outcomes that you\u2019re looking for. Exploration is \ntrying out new ways of doing and experimenting with new approaches. \nExploration is necessary to ensure continuous reinvention of the \ncompany, but exploitation is what pays the bills today. So, both \nactivities are necessary and no company will be successful focusing on \nonly one of them. Establishing the optimal balance between the two and \nassigning the associated responsibilities to individuals is critical to \ncontinuously evolve the company culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concluding, the current company culture is always a step behind the actual company needs. Ensuring that the company culture evolves at the pace required to maintain competitiveness requires presence, absence of judgment and openness. Focus on how you can evolve your company culture in order to maintain your competitiveness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To get more insights earlier, sign up for my newsletter at<\/em>jan@janbosch.com<\/em><\/a> or follow me on<\/em> janbosch.com\/blog<\/em><\/a>, LinkedIn (<\/em>linkedin.com\/in\/janbosch<\/em><\/a>) or Twitter (<\/em>@JanBosch<\/em><\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the human traits that I tend to forget about (and I believe many with me) is that we ignore well over 99 percent of all the information that our senses receive. If you don\u2019t believe me, take the selective attention test as a case in point. In many ways, focusing our mental energy … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=907"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":909,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions\/909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}