Consider the Culture Before You Enlist

It is a given that, whatever your job, you’re going to spend a massive amount of your life and devote a large part of your energies toward that endeavor. So, with that in mind the question is, why do we allow ourselves to join organizations that make us miserable?

A Hollister poll of 1000 people, employed and unemployed, in Massachusetts last summer asked them what factors contributed the most to their job satisfaction; the number one response was Organizational Culture.

It would seem that Organizational Culture is something we’d be able to get a glimpse at during interviews, interactions with the website and with all the social networks at our disposal, by talking to the current & past employees of the organization.

Meanwhile the same survey uncovered that only 40% of the respondents were happy with their current job.

It is our fault. You can point to the organization for having a destructive culture but you chose to join that culture.

The question is why aren’t we doing our homework to uncover what it’s like to work at the organization on the front end? Why aren’t we finding out more about an organization’s culture before we enlist within their ranks? Why are we willing to jump into an organization’s challenges simply because they are offering us a paycheck?

Job seekers owe it to themselves and their future employer to find out as much as possible about the culture of an organization before signing on.

Next time you’re looking into a job, talk to the employees on Facebook, or Linkedin. Talk to current employees, past employees, and vendors of the organization. When HR asks you for a list of references it is your duty to ask them for the same.

Before you commit your life to an organization ask, “Based on what I’ve uncovered am I going to be happy working in an atmosphere like this?” If the answer is yes, go for it. If you’re unsure, keep digging.

Do your homework first, your happiness depends on it.

Even Interns Influence Your Culture

We, Catch Your Limit Consulting, recently decided that we were going to bring on two interns to help us in different capacities. When we thought about adding two new people to our small group we asked ourselves "how is this going to change our culture?" The amount of discussion and thought we put into it was equal to adding a new full time position.

I think people sometimes consider an organization's culture as something that is stagnant. I hear people from other organizations say things like, "We are a culture committed to our customer," or "we have a culture of sales." The truth is, it's always changing, it's influenced by your brand, your industry, your community, your customers and your employees. Culture isn't something that can be dominated by the leaders of an organization. It's something they can influence, like the moon they have a certain gravitational pull but it isn't the only factor.

When we look for our new interns it will be important for us to find some one who can live our brand and embrace our culture. It seems like it'd be easy to be us, but that is simply the trick of an acrobat to make the tricks we're doing here at Catch Your Limit seem easy. Even if this person is doing tedious tasks they have to know how to be a part of our team. I think that is so often overlooked. Instead it is thought because they have a lower rank totem that somehow that means they'll have less of an effect on the culture. It's not true.

Everyone in an organization influences the culture of that organization. Don't just look for a skill set, or flexible hours, find people that you can embrace.

Sustaining Culture is Creating Culture

Yesterday I was talking to a guy from an engineering firm in Orlando and he was commenting on the cultural changes being implemented at his company. They'd recently been acquired by a large conglomerate that is buying firms all over the country. For the next few months they'll be learning how they're current corporate culture will be shaped by the culture of the conglomerate.

Thinking about the culture of this organization made me realize that even if you're not going through a merger, an acquisition, relocating half the office to Alaska or developing a new market corporate culture is ALWAYS in a constant state of flux. People are changing everyday, coming and going, you're hiring and firing. It is the people who create the culture, thus the culture is always changing. The core values, credo and mission statement can guide that culture at best and get completely ignored at worst.

A lot of people offer us positive compliments on our culture of fun and inspiration at Catch Your Limit. The fact is we work hard on sustaining that culture. We each commit to inspiring each other at our Monday morning meetings and throughout the week. When we fail we hold ourselves accountable. The important thing to know is it doesn't just happen, you have to make a commitment to it. You don't just show up to work one day and say suddenly have a fun environment. Each day you go in and say, "How can we have fun today?"So whether you're working on building a culture that values fun, sales, leadership, creativity or whatever, don't stop working on your culture. Sustaining culture is creating culture and it happens every day.