Can Culture Be Caught or Taught
Can culture be caught or taught
A culture of an organization includes the norms, feelings, beliefs, attitudes, collective experiences, history, assumptions and values of an organization. Culture is something a new executive senses even before his first day on the job. That is, new employees are told ‘how things are around here’ by their colleagues and their team-leaders.
"Caught and not taught" means you learn values or behaviors from the people that practice them, instead of by being told. You "catch" such values by seeing them lived. For example, if you were told (or "taught") by someone, "You ought to live a certain way" (but you saw them not being a very good example of their teaching), chances are you won't "catch" or consistently practice that value. On the other hand, if you see someone consistently living out what they believe, you might "catch" it. If their modeling of those values is powerful enough, their values can be caught.
The amount of catching and the amount of teaching is a balancing act that depends on any organizations existing culture (how entrenched it is, how far removed from the culture you need etc.), the degree of change that is required to make it happen and then the stage that you are going through.
E.g. you will do more teaching in the early stages of rolling out a culture, but less when it is clear that influential people (top managers, team leaders etc.) have caught the gist of it and are out there passing it around.
There is a well-known saying “You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink”
Building a company culture is the aspect of strategic business planning that most employers feel is most important to their business. Companies that truly live their corporate cultures are higher performing and better places to work than companies that lack them.
The 10 reasons why it’s important for a company to pay close attention to its solid corporate culture:
1. Generates positive public relations. Free PR creates
A culture of an organization includes the norms, feelings, beliefs, attitudes, collective experiences, history, assumptions and values of an organization. Culture is something a new executive senses even before his first day on the job. That is, new employees are told ‘how things are around here’ by their colleagues and their team-leaders.
"Caught and not taught" means you learn values or behaviors from the people that practice them, instead of by being told. You "catch" such values by seeing them lived. For example, if you were told (or "taught") by someone, "You ought to live a certain way" (but you saw them not being a very good example of their teaching), chances are you won't "catch" or consistently practice that value. On the other hand, if you see someone consistently living out what they believe, you might "catch" it. If their modeling of those values is powerful enough, their values can be caught.
The amount of catching and the amount of teaching is a balancing act that depends on any organizations existing culture (how entrenched it is, how far removed from the culture you need etc.), the degree of change that is required to make it happen and then the stage that you are going through.
E.g. you will do more teaching in the early stages of rolling out a culture, but less when it is clear that influential people (top managers, team leaders etc.) have caught the gist of it and are out there passing it around.
There is a well-known saying “You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink”
Building a company culture is the aspect of strategic business planning that most employers feel is most important to their business. Companies that truly live their corporate cultures are higher performing and better places to work than companies that lack them.
The 10 reasons why it’s important for a company to pay close attention to its solid corporate culture:
1. Generates positive public relations. Free PR creates