The unending quest for the ‘perfect’ organisational culture
The idea of ‘perfect’ suggests a destination marked by homogeneity, sameness, and repeatability.
Once we have it, we can stop thinking about culture. There is no need for improvement.
In many organisations, there is a multi-pronged pursuit of the often talked about but rarely seen ‘perfect’ organisational culture. If it can be found, the perfect culture promises unimaginable benefits for employee engagement, performance, and productivity. However, the quest seems to have no end, much gold and effort have been spent in the pursuit, but the longed-for benefits seem just as unattainable.
What if our quest is based on a false assumption? It may be time to take a different view.
What do we think of as a 'perfect' design? I think about clarity in function, balance in form, aesthetically engaging, coherence in composition, nothing wasted, harmony between the parts and the whole, and a sense of completeness.
How do we respond to perfection? We think of it as flawless. We set it apart. We admire it. We seek to preserve and protect it from the turbulence of life. We remove it from daily use. It should not be touched or interfered with—we cannot risk damaging it.
Yet, even though the CEO often leads the quest for the perfect organisational culture, it remains elusive and distant. Just as you think it is within your grasp, it changes into something else and vanishes, often taking its captor with it.
I need to expand on my experience to put this post in context. I am often asked by senior executives desperately hunting for the perfect organisational culture to describe what it looks and feels like. My response can range from a philosophical treatise on the nature of work and social order in human society to a list of organisational attributes that management practitioners and academics widely agree to be important in delivering high performance.
But, I have a deeper problem with the question itself. It suggests there is one right answer—the perfect answer. The question often has a plaintive feeling suggesting that the perfect organisational culture is always beyond reach. Nor is there a shortage of merchants offering intrepid adventurers a map to find the 'perfect' organisational culture. Easy step-by-step guides are available that comfort the weary and give hope to those setting off afresh—‘8 traits of the healthy organisational culture’, ‘6 components of a great corporate culture’ or 12 ways to a great corporate culture’. The reality is often more complicated.
Interestingly, the idea of ‘perfect’ can also suggest a destination marked by homogeneity, sameness, and repeatability. Once we have it, we can stop thinking about culture. There is no need for improvement.
Achieving perfection is a shield that can be used to hold back turbulence. It fixes organisational culture as an object to be kept in a glass case, sheltered from the elements, untouched by human hand and time—a museum piece to be admired but not handled. It is stable and preserved. Question: if we found it, would we want it?
Instead, we should pursue an imperfect organisational culture. We might take the view that organisational culture is always incomplete and unfinished. It is open and susceptible to modification and adaptation. It allows room for compromise and transformation.
It does not have the perfect architecture of a cathedral; it has the look and feel of many individual contributions that give it a collective aesthetic and value—a home rather than a house. It has dents and bruises where it has been buffeted by life. This gives it the impression of imperfection and speaks of learning and resilience.
Where does this lead us?
It brings our thinking about organisational culture into the present. Culture is not the object of a quest ‘out there’; instead, it is right in front of us. It is immediate and present.
It is a conglomerate formed through constant action and interaction that accumulates over time to produce the whole. So, we should feel free to engage with, influence, shape, and challenge it. It is unlikely to break or dissolve through our efforts.
We are all custodians of our organisational culture. We all contribute to its care and feeding. It is not the responsibility of the CEO alone.
It accumulates slowly. It is bound together by social capital and individual effort. Much of the time, the culture is passive and merely requires maintenance. Changes in culture are rare and episodic events that have lasting impacts. These effects open up new opportunities and make old structures and habits vulnerable. Actual cultural change is traumatic and difficult.
It introduces the idea that culture has local and global attributes. It is accreted over time incorporating and integrating new attributes into old. It has many boundaries and local characteristics that work together to give it overall strength. Consequently, it has a sense of scale that moves quickly from the global to the local.
It is affected by forces near and far. Some forces may be working to reinforce and stabilise existing patterns of behaviour, while others work to destabilise and decompose. The balance between these forces gives a sense of direction.
Policies and management approaches that are fixed on achieving efficiency but need to be more tolerant of local adaptation (e.g., one-size-fits-all policies) reduce the adaptability and flexibility of organisational culture. There is no silver bullet that will ‘fix’ the culture.
If there were a final cultural pattern in which all organisations could be arranged, then change and adaptation would be outlawed since it would disrupt the perfection of the pattern. Working with an imperfect organisational culture is more beneficial than continuing the quest for perfection.
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For those with a literary background, you might sense that I was influenced a bit by Lewis Carroll’s nonsense poem, The Hunting of the Snark: An Agony in Eight Fits, 1876.
