Is our Current Culture Maturing or Im-Maturing Our Employees?

Consider: is your existing culture im-maturing your people?

For example:
If your culture isn’t developing your people, it may be diminishing them?
If it isn’t empowering them it may be impoverishing them?

If it isn’t fun or creative it may be de-humanising and alienating them?
If your culture isn’t ‘alive’ and ‘thriving’ well maybe neither are your people, they may feel that they are ‘just a number’?

If your culture is making your people into miserable ‘children’ the really sad bit for me is that no one is doing it deliberately…probably??
If your culture is confused, inconsistent and ‘always moving the goal posts’ it may contribute to feelings of insecurity or apathy or who cares?

If it isn’t caring about them it may be creating a reciprocal reaction?
If it isn’t facilitating honest reciprocal communications it may be silencing employees?

If your culture is ‘immature’ so too are your employees….probably?

If your culture encourages ’carrot and stick’ (money and fear) motivation of employees it may foster defensiveness and dishonesty?

If it crushes initiative it may also be crushing employees?

If it isn’t engaging employees it may be isolating them?
If your culture is fragmented by divisive competitive silos it may be disempowering employees?

If your culture is making a 'child' out of even one of your 'men', it needs to be re-invented?
If your culture is not developing intrinsic motivation, and keeping hygiene factors ‘clean’ and positive, what is? And what is your culture doing instead?

If your culture is neglected your employees may feel ignored and of no value?

It isn’t likely that any one of the above will im-mature your employees by itself, but the accumulative combined effect of several or all of them will over time. It’s a bit like a process of erosion. The above will weaken motivation, identity with your business, self-confidence and
willingness to change of employees and maybe just at a time when you need their support to facilitate the best results of AI?

Do the im-maturing effects of culture really matter that much?
Only you can answer that question for your business but consider:
if we really want to avoid Future Shock and Create a Future Choice of our own making, we will need to change many things including ourselves and immature cultures that may be still de-maturing employees and morphing our ‘men’ into ‘children’ emotionally and psychologically.

Why is it that ‘men’ who manage their own lives, take out mortgages, and with their partners raise families, buy cars and holidays, care for their parents, have meaningful roles in their communities etc. etc. too often still are not trusted to fully manage their jobs and livelihoods; spend company money or make business decisions?

Is it because despite all of the changes that have occurred in organisational cultures in the last 100 years, some elements, or the shadows of them, remain such as, ‘them and us’?

Many cultures today still exhibit a two-tier ‘class’ system of white collar educated ‘bosses’ and blue collar workers who do more menial work. And this is perpetuated for example by pay structures whereby some employees are salaried and may receive significant bonuses and others are hourly paid with the implication of 200 years ago that the company’s commitment to them is basically just one hour.

If so, how im-maturing is that acting like a drip-feed ‘know your place’ with every weekly pay packet? Why isn’t every employee salaried or hourly paid? Why a two-tier pay system?

Or, is it simpler and because the ‘white collar’ leaders fear losing control of their business to lesser educated immature employees who won’t understand the complexities of ‘our’ ‘business’? But who do understand how to manage and control their own complex ‘business’ i.e. their life and the lives of their families?

The life skills employees have learned and been accountable for to their families are brought to the business daily FREE and are often completely wasted by ‘managers’ who should know better.
Those life skills in my experience are the ‘gold’ from which synergy, creativity, high performance and the release and realisation of more potential, of the business and its people, are achieved enabling them to soar beyond the stars and transform ‘impossibles’ into realities.

Not only that, they are the ‘life and soul’ of the culture, the ‘heart-beat’ of your company, the reason why employees get up in the morning wanting to come to work. The reason why employees will really feel to belong and will take ownership for change and continuous improvement of everything.

My OD consulting work with Lubrizol and Pfizer proved this to me in how employees achieved the ‘impossibles’ transforming them into realities that astonished everyone including themselves. I know that what I am writing is true from my direct experience of working with the employees who made it happen.

Both Lubrizol and I were awarded a UK National Training Award with the judges describing my approach as ‘revolutionary and inspiring’. I was very pleased with that, wouldn’t you be?

I am not writing theory from a book or talking about the latest fads. I am describing real world actions with ‘impossible’ outcomes achieved by employees.

In Lubrizol 70 employees saved the business from closure; earned an extra £40,000 profit in their first month and tripled productivity in 2 months.

In Pfizer employees created a record breaking financial success that was sustained for 13 years with self managed teams, no supervisors, no overtime, and started commercial production 4.5 months ahead of schedule despite a lengthy delay in construction.

Both stories are told on my website: www.MentoringandMentorship.com.

When was the last time you assessed your existing culture?…….and improved it?

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