- [Instructor] Pick up any business magazine and you're likely to find an article about the customer experience. What are our customers thinking? What's it like to do business with us? It's a proven fact that enhancing the customer experience can have a huge impact on business success. Now, flip that concept around. When we talk about organizational culture, we're talking about the employee experience. Same questions, but the internal view. What do our employees think? What's it like to work here? How can we keep them engaged, loyal, and dedicated? Organizational culture, the employee experience is a steady backdrop for every company's daily operations. With that said, it's important to remember that it might be in the background but it colors absolutely everything that happens. Doesn't matter if you develop a great product or plan a killer kickoff meeting, if there's an underlying mood of bitterness, resentment, or apathy, the long-term outlook for the business won't be good. Corporate culture is the filter through which everything else happens, it matters. Let's apply a more specific definition. Organizational culture is the cumulative effect of the common beliefs, behaviors, and values of the people within a company. Those norms determine how employees perform and serve customers, how they interact with each other, whether they feel motivated to meet goals and whether they genuinely buy into the company's overall mission. Take a moment to observe and consider the culture in your organization. How are people getting their work done, independently or collaboratively? Do people there generally feel inspired, committed, and engaged, or annoyed, overworked, and underappreciated? Whether you're helping to define and build a culture or change an existing one, I encourage you to download my Culture Scan to help jumpstart your assessment journey. Creating a positive employee experience is a universal goal but there's more than one way to get there. Early in my career, I worked for a huge company that was run by former military leaders. Policies were very strict and we were expected to follow them to the letter. I later joined a small startup company in the same industry. The systems and procedures hadn't even been established and the lines between functions and duties were often blurred. In both cases, the employees were very passionate about serving the customers, and both companies were successful. But as you might imagine, the cultures were completely different. That's one of four additional facets we can use to define culture. The first being, every culture is unique and there's no single right answer. Even if they have the same goal of creating happy employees, how they get there can be very different. Second, cultures give us a clear guideline for identifying potential employees who will be a good fit. When companies hire people who are more likely to thrive in those environments, they significantly increase their odds of success. Third, cultures are fluid. They need to be grown and nurtured like any relationship. Sometimes cultures evolve as external factors fluctuate or as the company simply grows and expands. If the mission changes, the culture might need to adjust too. Other times, companies fight to keep their cultures from evolving away from their core values. The point being, organizations need to monitor their cultures and control when and if they change rather than leaving that to chance. Fourth, some organizations can elevate their internal cultures to become part of their external identity and set themselves apart. When we think about companies like Facebook or Whole Foods, we see that those brands are a direct reflection of the energy and spirit found inside the company. Their internal cultures differentiate them and impact their financial success. These four qualities help us round out the definition of organizational culture. It's a reflection of the employee experience, and it often determines whether companies ultimately win or lose.