What makes up oranizational culture?

If you were to visit different five schools during the week, you would find yourself in five distinct settings each with a specific context, each with a unique culture. If you would take a tour of three different manufacturing plants, you would walk away with three distinct flavors of organizational climate. What makes your place of work different than any other? If you were to describe your work environment what unique characteristics would you use to detail your experience? Each employment setting, whether for-profit or not-for-profit; large or small organization; manufacturing or technology oriented, all seem to possess certain elements of commonality.

In recent months I have been part of a dialog with another educational leader regarding the nature of organizational culture and in particular, the culture of education. As I have reflected on some of the results of this dialog, I think that our model of culture contains many common elements to organizational culture in general. Although my place of ministry may be quite different than yours, I propose that they are some common aspects to most organizational settings. Let me suggest three.

The model of organizational culture that my colleague and I suggest is made of of four basic concepts: people, programs, paper and the interaction between them. This post will describe each element in general. Several posts to follow will explore the elements in more detail.

People: every organization that I can think of revolves around people. The total number and the various layers of stakeholders vary greatly from company to company, but the core of every organization involves the people who own, run, work for and benefit from the company. In a school setting the stakeholders involve the students, faculty, administration, parents, grandparents, secretaries, vendors, alumni, and publishers. Employees and customers make the world go round.

Programs: each organization has a reason for existence. Most companies have a mission statement that clearly and concisely describe its purpose. This mission or purpose usually has a programmatic element designed to accomplish the goals of the organization. Schools have curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular programs designed to transform the educational process into reality.

Paper: Every organization has certain foundational documents that define who they are. A mission statement, a vision statement, a statement of core values, a constitution and by-laws, a list of corporate convictions, handbooks and manuals, contracts and agreements, are all examples of the foundational documents that define and govern an organization. Some documents are fixed and rarely change in essential content while other written statements change with the growth and development of the company.

Interaction: The culture of an organization is really developed in the crucible of interaction. As people, paper, and program begin to co-exist there is an interaction between and within these elements that create culture. The interaction of these elements is like the intense heat that creates glass out of white sand, purified pearlash, nitre and borax. As fire serves as the catalyst for glass formation, so the interaction of the elements of the organization create the environment, often intense and pressure-packed, that results in culture. It is the unique interaction of your organizational elements that makes your work culture different than any other setting.