{"id":7756,"date":"2012-03-22T10:06:29","date_gmt":"2012-03-22T04:36:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.manuprasad.com\/blog\/?p=4681"},"modified":"2021-01-02T11:15:16","modified_gmt":"2021-01-02T05:45:16","slug":"culture-org","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/2012\/03\/22\/culture-org\/","title":{"rendered":"Culture.org"},"content":{"rendered":"

For quite a while, I have believed that culture is the most underestimated and underutilised tool among the organisation’s means of gaining strategic advantage. A few like the much venerated Zappos have used this lapse to maximum effect and by assembling a group of passionate and aligned individuals generated profits and publicity, all while retaining a culture that continues to thrive. Remember “Anyone can do what we do, but nobody can be who we are.<\/em>\u201d?<\/p>\n

Last week, Maneesh wrote an excellent post titled ‘The Importance of Culture<\/a>‘ that started off a discussion on twitter involving him, Harish<\/a> and me. Having experienced a few instances when the influx of money into an organisation (not necessarily a startup) changed the internal landscape completely, I wondered whether scale (that many a time follows money) and culture are usually mutually exclusive. It’s not always so, but it takes not just a very skilled management team, but also an empowered employee bunch down the line to make it happen. It takes communication, rewarding the right behaviour and a lot of clarity to ensure that the culture is not lost. To quote from the post, “Culture is attitude, it is not behaviour. Everyone knows this, but we all get it messed up.<\/em>“<\/p>\n

When he linked professionalism and culture, I smiled because I remembered an incident from a couple of years back. That (very interesting) discussion, which prompted this post<\/a>, was on whether passion or professionalism could better help the organisation scale. For various reasons, at that time, the two were mutually exclusive in the organisation. I argued for professionalism, because to me, it represented consistency and reliability. We both refused to accept the easy compromise of ‘both are necessary’. Towards the end, the management guru equated a professional to a mercenary. To me, the difference, was in alignment. In that sense, I agree with Maneesh that professionalism is practically non-negotiable. To quote from the post again, “You become a professional when you care. Your culture defines what you care about.<\/em>“<\/p>\n

A couple of days after this discussion, this tweet appeared on my TL<\/p>\n

Why I’m Leaving… Goldman nyti.ms\/wbJZnZ<\/a> Google bit.ly\/whVQ9s<\/a> TechCrunch tcrn.ch\/zv0KNJ<\/a> AIG nyti.ms\/xp2OBK<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Zach Seward (@zseward) March 14, 2012<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n