by Mr. Tiny Brain

Created on: January 30, 2009

Are we sheep or wolves? What animal would best represent your companies culture? Do you see yourself as eagles soaring above the competition or do your customers see you as a dodo who dreams of flight as a distant memory? Your perception and that of your employees and customers can shape your future.

A number of companies try to paint glorious images of themselves but over time the truth always comes out. In the case of businesses like Enron the difference between their culture and their image was so dramatic that they've become a byword for thieves pretending to be stalwart business partners.

When people speak of their corporate culture the place to begin is where you are today. You want to know if your company has a corporate culture or a collection of disassociated subcultures. In simple terms you need to know if you're all on the same page. The easiest way to find out is to observe. First determine what quality you wish to test. As an example you may wonder how honest your employees believe they should be. Is the truth a rock or just a vague concept that suckers believe in. To evaluate your employees all you need to do is to inject comments or presentations with varying levels of inaccuracies into conversations you're monitoring. Pay attention to signs of resistance or acceptance from your audience. Do the members of your teem seem willing to go along with inaccurate information. If they do go along, is it because they can't sense you're lying or because they feel like its their job to just go along with whatever you say? Are there limits to how extreme or how much suffering would result from your statements before your people react?

Another good method of discovery is the survey. The value of the information you receive is a direct result of the quality of the questions and the honesty of the people tabulating the results. Do you have the courage to ask your employees if they think you and your staff are honest? Are you leaders or armchair quarterbacks who can only say what they would have done after the fact? Does your company believe in education or do only managers have the capacity to contribute new ideas? Is your company flexible in their approach to resolving customer problems or do you have a one size fits all response?

Initially you need someone who is observant and knowledgeable enough to understand what he's seeing to evaluate your culture. Eventually if you hope to have a corporate culture all or most of your employees should be able to determine

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