What is Culture in an organisation?- SHIV

Before we understand the term culture let us look at what successful organisations are made of. Almost all management thinkers and writers have agreed that the human beings in an organisation and theway they intercat is the key aspect of culture and which more often than not is a Key Success Factor.

In today’s world, if anything is in shortage it is Quality manpower!!. This is especially true in large populations especially from countries with diversity like India!!. Sounds contradictory, the more there are people to recruit from, the tougher it is to choose the right kind!!.

Each employee brings 4 distinct characterstics to an organisation – Knowledge, Skills, Attitude and Habit.

Knowledge – How to do things

Sills – How well to do things

Attitude – How the employee comes across to others while carrying out his tasks

Habit- How he normally does things.

The first two are more easily available and highly democratised with the advent of more schools, colleges and the internet. The last two are the more difficult ones to get and are the key ingredients to culture.

When the older companies were set up , the workforce – both “labour” and “management” were from similar socio economic backgrounds . You were slotted as manager or managed based on your education/knowledge and skills alone and the attitude and habits were more similar than diverse. Hence culture got built more easily in older companies in the yester years. It is more difficult today.

Attitude and Habits differ based on the socio economic backgrounds of people.

Habits are usually very difficult to break and a smart organisation leverages on the habits of effective people to make it an organisation habit and later on it becomes the culture of an organisation. A great example can be seen in Asian Paints, one of the top 10 paint companies in the world and it is totally Indian. It is Asian Paints culture to take detailed notes in all meetings whether with dealers or otherwise. The action points are clearly highlighted and the same is reviewed int he next meeting. This is a habit and now is a part of the culture of the company. The culture is one of being mindful of even the smallest detail and hence the company is just and plain efficient and therefore dominant in its operations!!

Attitude is a more individualised trait and is even more difficult to leverage on for creating a successful organisation. Asian Paints recruits over 200 fresh graduates from top management and engineering schools as trainees every year. To ensure that the individual’s attitude “gels” with the overall company’s attitude without affecting his individuality, Asian Paints had this great training program for a year whereby every trainee starts off at the lowest level in the function he is assigned to. For example, a sales management trainee starts off as a salesman in one territory where he is an under study to the regular sales officer. He travels by the same conveyance and eats the same food and stays at the same hotel as the sales officer. This as we used to call it “grinds all inflated egos to the ground” and generates an attitude to help others and understand the real “market”. Later on when the trainee manages the sales teams, he knows their issues and problems and is able tot take effective decisions without any “false” attitude. Anybody who does not make the “cut” is clearly reassigned or eased out after the first round of promotions. This has created a culture of friendliness, apolitical approach that has made Asian Paints what it is today.