\n
<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Much has been written about culture and organizations. <\/span>We\u2019ve been told that culture reflects beliefs and \u201cnorms.\u201d <\/span>It\u2019s also a living breathing organism (or beast) infecting those inside the machine. <\/span>Obviously, this can be good or bad. <\/span>The problem is that we pay attention to culture after we\u2019re under its spell. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \n <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Howard Schultz of Starbucks fame says culture must be addressed at the very start. <\/span>I tend to agree with him. <\/span>If you\u2019re in an organization with a bad culture, you better be prepared to bring out the nuclear option. <\/span>Anything less will leave you negotiating with the beast. <\/span>I call this a fearful state of living. <\/span>Think about it, most bad cultures are full of the following:<\/span><\/p>\n \n <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n 1. <\/span><\/span><\/span>Entrenched dysfunctional behaviors.<\/p>\n 2. <\/span><\/span><\/span>Old ideas championed by old thinking leaders.<\/p>\n 3. <\/span><\/span><\/span>Little or no innovation.<\/p>\n 4. <\/span><\/span><\/span>Market dependent (as the market goes, so does the organization).<\/p>\n 5. <\/span><\/span><\/span>Leaders that live in denial (reality is not a factor in decision making).<\/p>\n \n <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n I\u2019ve seen way too many leaders who believed they could kill the beast with a sword (usually wielded by a white knight for hire), only to realize that a sword is not enough. <\/span>If the organization is unwilling (or unable) to take the necessary steps, you may need to leave or use the enterprise as a laboratory for growth. <\/span>Whichever way you choose, don\u2019t pretend that the culture is amoral.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Much has been written about culture and organizations. We\u2019ve been told that culture reflects beliefs and \u201cnorms.\u201d It\u2019s also a living breathing organism (or beast) infecting those inside the machine. Obviously, this can be good or bad. The problem is that we pay attention to culture after we\u2019re under its spell. Howard Schultz of Starbucks…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}