Organizational Culture Essay #3 (Essay Sample)

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Organizational Culture
Introduction
As a business conquers the global market, recruiting a workforce from different cultures across the world working in the same workplace cannot be avoided. Hence, training that merge the different cultures become increasingly important. Despite the intangible nature of culture, its role in any organization cannot be underestimated as it affects the employees and overall operations. Positive cultures in an organization guarantee the success of the business and gives the establishment a competitive advantage over its rivals. Ideally, people come from different social, cultural and ethnical backgrounds that equip them with various experiences and personalities, hence the importance of accommodating each other. Cultures are greater determinants of how people behave and, hence when developing them; care should be taken to avoid inefficiencies. The vision and objectives of the development are the essential elements of any culture, and they should be aligned with the company’s goals. There are components that should avoided in any corporate cultures due to their significance (Schein 33). Such components include vision, values, practices, people, narrative, and place.
For a culture to be celebrated, it should be based on a mission statement or vision that guides the organization. A business without a vision is like a path that leads to nowhere. The vision enables a company to have a purpose and this in turn orients the employees and any other stakeholders like suppliers towards that purpose. Indeed, this makes the process of decision making in the company easy as decisions are made towards achievement of the intended purpose. To achieve the set goals, values are important as they give a guideline of behaviors expected to achieve those objectives. Values mainly depend on the personality of an individual as they are developed within a person. For the values to be of any importance, they must be encompassed in the company’s practices. For example, if a corporation believes that employees are valuable, the policies put across should be aimed at protecting the rights of such employees.
Moreover, the values that have been put across should be reinforced through the rules adopted by the company and practiced in the daily life of the firm. People should be present for any business to build a coherent culture as it is these individuals who share the core values of the business or are willing to embrace and act in accordance to those values. The way in which the workplace is organized plays a critical role in how the cultures are developed. In this regard, it ought to be organized in a way that it allows informal and formal interactions and collaborations among the employees in their daily activities. It is through these interactions that good network and cooperation are formed across the employees, and hence the objectives of the business are achieved easily.
Organizational Culture
Given the different variables that affect cultural development, the idea of collectiveness among the workers is of importance. However, there might be some conditions that should be met so that a team can operate effectively to achieve the objectives of the company. These conditions are as follows communication, coordination, balancing the contributions made by each member, mutual support among the members, unity and effort and social interaction. Effective communication forms the basis of collectivism as it is used as a tool to develop social interactions among the members of the group and, hence easy coordination. When coordination is effective, it means that the activities are done at the right time by the right people, hence increased productivity and quality. The more efficient the communication, the stronger the bonds, more idea and information sharing, clear roles and responsibilities leading to improved quality.Some of the variables that critically affect the culture of any organization are influenced by the founders, size and development stage of the business, the attitude of the organization to risk taking and organizational structures, policies, and practices. Due to these divergent variables that affect the formation of a culture, collectiveness is of importance so as to seal this gap towards achieving a common goal.
Role of collectivism
Collectivism allows individuals, either managers or founders, to put aside their personal interests and differences and work together towards the attaining the company’s objectives. Additionally, it helps in promoting cooperation and teamwork in an organization, hence the collaboration despite divergent personalities and backgrounds. When many employees work together in unison, they may bring about enhanced quality in the workplace and improved customer satisfaction. Indeed, this happens because they can pool together their unique talents for the greater good of the organization. What is more, this helps in reducing undesirable competition among workers that may cause selfishness and conflicts. Individuals strive to better the organization through their talents rather than gain recognition and appraisal. The success of any team is highly attributed to the leader as he directs the coordination of that particular group (Schein 75). Therefore, an open leadership is recommended in a group as it motivates the other team members.
Ceremonies to foster cooperation
Team building activities are vital in an organization as they help strengthen bonds between employees and promote values and ethical principles. It is important to include these activities in the calendar of events of the organization. Some of the team building activities that can be incorporated into a company are communication activities, problem-solving and decision-making activities, adaptability and planning activities and trust building activities. These activities aim at improving team work among the employees, and this helps improve the performance and productivity easily through fun activities rather than through normal working routines. The communication activities can include coin logo, truths and dare and life highlights games. More importantly, the communication activities act as ice breakers between employees at different levels of employment, hence more cohesion.
Through employee’s participation in these activities, there is improved communication amongst themselves. Workers can interact in an informal manner during these events, hence there is free and relaxed conversation amongst themselves. Indeed, this facilitates them to know each other better including the likes and dislikes and, hence minimizing the probability of a conflict occurring. Without conflicts, activities run smoothly and no time is wasted trying to solve problems. Further, there is ice breaking between the top management and junior employees as they interact freely in a casual manner during these activities. Arguably, this makes the relationship between the team members stronger as there is no fear for the superiors, but rather respect, hence increased productivity and success of the business. When there is a free interaction between the managers and junior employees, rebellion is minimal as those in the top management positions consider the opinions of the juniors during decision making. During the problem-solving and decision-making activities, the employees can understand one another's strengths and weaknesses. When a weakness is noted in a person, others will work towards the betterment of that particular person in the area of weakness.
On the other hand, those who are good in a given field are recognized and appreciated. When undertaking activities such as puzzle games, one person may be good at putting together different pieces to come up with something logical while the other may be good at filling up number puzzles. Therefore, when giving tasks in the workplace, managers can know which tasks can be perfectly handled by an individual employee. Other roles that team building activities play involve boosting the morale of the workers, motivation and learning effective strategies of solving certain stressful situations that may arise. When handling these operations, an employee may be able to discover a talent that he did not know about before, hence feel motivated to practice it at the workplace and this may lead to increased productivity (Schein 45). It is through such activities that employees from all departments can meet and engage in brainstorming, hence they discover efficient ways of working across departments easily without any conflict. Through such mingling, the workers have a sense of belonging to the company as the bonds are strengthened, and they feel like they are part of the organization as unity is fostered among all the employees.
Organizational language
Effective communication plays a pivotal role in any organization. The common types of communication in any organization are upward, downward and horizontal communication. Upward involves communication from the management to the junior staff and may include giving orders. On the contrary, downward is the communication from the junior staff to the management and may include giving suggestions and complaints. Horizontal communication takes place across employees at the same level. There are many participants in an organization like the customers, vendors, employees, and international business partners. The activities of all these parties are linked through communication that is both verbal and nonverbal. Some of the roles that effective communication play in an organization include employee morale, motivation and positive effect on absenteeism and turnover rates (Cameron and Robert 45). However, effective communication can only be possible through language. Language is very vital in the organization because it can either act as a bridge or a barrier to ...