Organisational culture is also found in the little things

When we talk about organisational culture, it’s easy to think of big concepts: a company’s values, its purpose, its mission or what it says it wants to be.

But culture also shows up in much smaller things.

For example, in starting every meeting ten minutes late.

WHAT IS ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE?

Organisational culture is the set of behaviours, habits, rules — including unwritten ones — and ways of relating to one another that shape how an organisation works day to day.

It can be seen in how decisions are made, how conflicts are handled, how information is shared or what happens when someone makes a mistake.

And often, no one needs to explain to us how things work.

We learn by watching.

Starting every meeting late is also part of your culture

Imagine you’ve just joined a new organisation.

You have a meeting at 10:00.

At 9:58, you get up from your desk to head to the meeting room, but no one else moves.

You wait.

At 10:03, someone starts to get up. Then someone else does. Eventually, the meeting starts at 10:10.

The following week, the same thing happens.

And chances are that, after a while, you won’t get up at 9:58 either. You might even reach a point where you feel a little silly always being the first one there.

No one has told you that meetings start late here.

But you’ve learnt it.

And, most likely, you’ll end up doing the same.

That is culture too.

THE UNWRITTEN RULES OF AN ORGANISATION

When someone joins a new organisation, they quickly start observing what happens around them.

Who speaks the most in meetings?

What happens when someone suggests something different?

How do people react when someone makes a mistake?

Can we openly say that we disagree?

Who really makes the decisions?

Which behaviours are accepted, and which are challenged?

All these small situations help us understand the real rules of the game.

Because every organisation has unwritten rules.

Some create positive dynamics: sharing information, asking for help when we need it, listening to different opinions or acknowledging mistakes.

Others, perhaps, not so much: consistently arriving late, avoiding difficult conversations, assuming that certain people always have the final say or staying silent when we disagree.

When these behaviours are repeated, they gradually become normal.

And once they become normal, they become part of the culture.

CULTURE ISN'T JUST DEFINED. IT'S PRACTISED.

That’s why working on an organisation’s culture isn’t simply about defining a set of values.

It also means looking at whether the way we actually work is consistent with those values.

How we talk to one another.

How we make decisions.

How we lead.

How we deal with disagreements.

How we run our meetings.

Because culture is built every day through small behaviours that, often without even realising it, we learn and repeat.

So perhaps, if we want to understand an organisation’s culture, we can start with a very simple question:

What does a new person learn during their first few weeks without anyone ever having to explain it?

The answer might tell us far more about our culture than we imagine.