Late night thoughts on what it takes to build a high performing culture

This image depicts my late night scribbles and an attempt to make sense of my thoughts on what it takes to build a high performing culture within in organization. A second iteration is coming soon.

What is Organizational Culture and Why Does it Matter?

Welcome!

For the next ten or so weeks, I'll be writing on the topic of organizational culture, how culture changes and transforms (within) organizations, and what this means for companies and their multiple bottom lines.

Before we dive in over the coming weeks, let's define organizational culture as something more than just the "culture of an organization."

What?

My first exposure to the concept of sustainability was in a cultural anthropology class that I was taking at a local community college during my junior year in high school. Because the concepts of anthropology have acted as a lens for the formation of my views on both sustainability and business, I will refer to the anthropological definition of culture, which is - the learned patterns of behavior and thought that help a group adapt to its surroundings.

Organization, on the other hand, is defined as - an administrative or functional structure and the people who work within that structure. For our purposes, we will mostly be looking at for-profit businesses.

Organizational culture, therefore, can be defined as - the learned patterns of behavior and thought that help a business adapt within a competitive market. The culture of an organization reflects the collective values and behaviors that contribute to the social and psychological environments that impact the performance and ultimate success of a business.

The fact that organizations have culture probably seems extremely obvious but it is the subtle nuances and vast intricacies of these cultures, how they are constantly changing and transformed by the people and physical environments that influence them, and the ease in which those on the inside of these organizations fail to realize that their culture can be consciously and proactively changed, and how, may not be so obvious.

Why? 

I believe we have the choice to be conscious of the cultures in which we live and work. As we have the  increasing opportunity to align our personal values with our livelihood, our responsibility to take a proactive approach to find innovative ways to improve the structures that make us money and impact the world we depend on, also increases. Our ability to shape the world around us and the success of our ventures depend on our being conscious of and taking responsibility for our collective behavior, our culture.

Looking forward to diving deeper on this topic with you!

Porter's Model Still Relevant? Implications?

There have been two articles over the past month that have questioned the relevance of Porter's five competitive forces and value chain model in the context of all things social. First, Andrew Shipilov questions but ultimately argues that social media does not change the relevance of Porter's forces but more recently, Nilofer Merchant, in Harvard Business Review argues that what she deems the social era (not just social media) does indeed make Porter's model no longer work.

The heart of the question is simply, do companies need to be big to be untouchable?

Merchant explains the social era as being fast, fluid, and flexible, and that gorillas are not the one's being rewarded but rather the gazelles. Prior to the social era, companies had to chase scale to find profit but as it is increasingly easier to quickly shift processes and reach customers through social feedback and marketing channels, it is possible, and even preferable to stay nimble.

I recently read my colleagues blog piece on the recent socent weekend that took place at The Hub Seattle which triggered a question tat I've been working with for years; how can we get more ideas out into the world to be tested so that social change can happen more quickly? The beauty with the social era, is that it is increasingly easier to access the information necessary to take a chance and start a business and the nature of what it takes to be successful rewards those who are nimble, creative, and willing to take risk.

More on this soon.

Politics, Strategy, and the Demise of a Brand

"He's a good man, just in the wrong century."
-Kathleen Parker, syndicated columnist.
 
There is no better widely-broadcasted public arena than national politics in the US to witness and study strategy.

The above quote is in reference to Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum who has been making headlines lately for his polarizing rhetoric and a surge in the polls. He has seemingly led the conversation to a religiously charged place where each candidate is jockeying to be the most conservative in the eyes of the public. Santorum is leading the charge to bring religion into the conversation with statements like "separation of church and state make me want to vomit" but is he the one who actually wanted this shift in the debate?

The Obama administration's recent proposal to mandate that religious based health organizations pay for contraception created a fire storm in conservative circles and led to a public discussion on whether contraception should be promoted or even used at all. Was this just another controversial stance by Obama or was this a strategic move to shepherd the republican debate into territory that is only supported by a small number of Americans? All of whom are aligned with an aging political party that is growing increasingly less diverse and seemingly less in tune with a rapidly changing nation.

If the goal is differentiation, the republican party is successfully moving that way, just not in the direction of their ultimate year end goal, to occupy the White House. While each candidate works to position themselves as the conservative of choice, they are moving increasingly farther away from appealing to the moderates and independents that they need to get elected.

We are witnessing the very public demise of a brand, the Republican party. As the world changes and evolves around the party that currently has control of the House of Representatives, they are failing to realize that their rigidity, a core value that their most public figures praise, is what will ultimately be their downfall. Flexibility and the ability to adapt is core to the existence of any brand.

If the Republican party continues to stand their ground, they will soon be left with no earth beneath their feet.

Same Same but Different

In a post back in November, I wrote about an event I attended called the Oregon Imagination Conversation that was hosted at the Ziba auditorium. This event was a focused discussion on the state of imagination in Oregon and how imagination could be harnessed to address issues that the state faces.

This past Thursday, I attended an event at the Ziba auditorium put on by GOOD Magazine called GOOD Ideas For Cities aimed at harnessing local ideas and finding creative solutions to challenges that the city of Portland faces.

Mayor Sam Adams was there.

Where as the Imagination Conversation visibly lacked a strong showing of more than ten people under the age of 35, GOOD Ideas For Cities clearly brought out the millenials in full force. It is within this clear dichotomy that lies a major issue opportunity for Portland and a concept that I've been thinking about for a while now.

How can young energy and ideas be combined with experience and resources to get things done? Or how can we create a super generation of movers and shakers hell bent on finding creative solutions that have legs?

Like I said in November, Portland has a strong creative culture that, in part due to the lack of job opportunities, is proving to be quite entrepreneurial. And on top of being entrepreneurial, this generation in Portland (many of whom have recently moved here from all over the country) want to help solve problems and make their work do good things for the community. Many of them truly love this community and are looking for ways to plug in.

So my next question is, what is community? Is community something we are born into? Is it something that you automatically  become a part of once you touch down in a new place?

The way I look at it, community is whatever we want it to be, it's the collective efforts of people in the same place or with a similar mission. And based on this, Portland has two communities that are awfully close to becoming one based on the fact that these groups of people, young and old, native Oregonian and not, established or seeking solid ground, are in the same western outpost trying to make it a better place.

I knew this was true in November and now seeing another event, in the same space, with starkly different age groups in attendance working to tackle similar issues, it's even clearer that there is a bright opportunity here, who's in?

Economic Nostalgia

Yes, it's true and what does this mean? Is this the way society is headed regardless of whether knitting, canning, and overall self reliance is trending or not?

The culture in Portland seems to heading this way. Underneath the ridiculous trends and all the talk of hipsterdom, there is a an honest desire by many to be more self reliant. Because of this, the economy seems to be cutting out the fat and becoming more lean.

What types of opportunities will come from this shift? We're already seeing the emergence of a world class food culture in Portland, what else?

What Would You Change? - Part 2

I wanted to continue my thoughts regarding the business I started and try to answer the question, what would you change?

We're focused on strategy this week, so let's dive in.

When we launched our space, we knew that it was different. We wanted it that way. We were trying to build a professional space that would spur synergy, creativity, and economic development. Our vision was strong, our strategy, specifically how we positioned the space among competitors was not.

We started the space in September 2008, right when the economy was starting to take a dive. I decided to market the space as "affordable office space (plus)." The "affordable" would get them in the door and the added benefits of co-working would keep them and hopefully change their  perspective of the value they were receiving. From a sales standpoint, this worked well. Inexpensive office space got people in the door, singing leases, and paying rent. But, this strategy led to negative impacts to our brand down the road.

When differentiating between our space, a large open plan with 15 work stations, with our competition, which were mostly private office spaces scattered throughout town, we positioned it as "affordable" rather than open, creative, and different. This position led potential customers to believe that our space was affordable because it was open and shared, and therefore was inferior to private office space. When the real estate market worsened and landlords in the town began lowering the rent of their private offices, it made even current customers at the time ask why they would pay the same amount for open space as they would for a private space.

 All that said, due to the timeliness of the launch, I don't know what other strategy would have worked better. The strong economic forces that were bearing down on our small piece of the economy led all of us who were providing space and business amenities to have to adapt very quickly and often.