Not long ago I attended a leadership training session at Tampa General Hospital. What struck me most was a comment by the CEO, John Couris, who noted that “You can’t build culture on MS Teams”. It resonated with me because of experiences I have had in meeting people face-to-face after interacting with them online. I recently met my last fall virtual class in person, and what a difference it makes when people who were just pixels become real. You suddenly feel a connection that was missing online. Those connections are what it takes to develop an organizational culture because building organizational culture requires direct communication. You can’t do it virtually, not really. Sure there is a virtual culture of a sort, but it is far more sterile and relationships are far more distant and impersonal.
Elements of Organizational Culture
The culture of an organization reflects its unique personality. It is reflected in several elements.
- Artifacts: This is the physical space and physical objects. Walk onto a medical unit and you see all kinds of medical equipment and devices. In a college classroom there are desks for the students, whiteboards in the front, and the instructor’s lectern with computers and other electronic equipment.
- Customs: These are accepted behavior practices that can be unique to each organization, and even parts of an organization. Unwritten dress codes affect people’s choice of attire. If I am on a university campus and walk to the medical school, I see lots of white coats. A stroll to the fine arts building, and people are wearing jeans and t-shirts. Customs also define how people interact with one another. Do we have lunch together? Do we ask one another for input before making a decision? Do we offer help to colleagues who have a heavy workload?
- Symbols: These are visual elements that delineate the organization. Companies have logos that are spread throughout their space. Walk into a BestBuy store and you see the same logo as displayed on the website.
- Values: Organizational culture is in part defined by the values of members. One sales organization might value customer service while another values maximizing sales.
Organizational Culture Requires Direct Communication
It is tough to build an organizational culture virtually because most of that culture cannot be experienced. You can’t get the look and feel of a place without being there. Understanding the customs of an organization requires direct communication with other organization members. Although online meetings are great for getting specific tasks done and sharing information, they filter out most of the informal interactions that occur at live meetings. When you talk to someone face-to-face you can process more than just their words and tone of voice. You see where they are looking and if they are paying attention, and you see their posture and body language that provides important cues about how they are receiving what you say. These elements that provide rich communication make online meetings sterile. You can’t have eye contact because you don’t know where people are looking. Most body language can’t be seen, and when people turn their cameras off, you can’t see facial expression. These elements are needed to build relationships that are the foundation of organizational culture.
Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the virtual tools that save time and travel. When a group needs to get together to share some information or gather input, a quick online meeting can get the job done. But these tools work best with people you already know, and people you also see in person. The face-to-face meetings enable relationships and trust to grow. If you never breathe the same air with people, relationships are more superficial, impersonal, and entirely task based.
I am always excited to meet colleagues in person who I have worked with only virtually. I first experienced this in the 1990s working on the Collaborative International Study of Managerial Stress (CISMS), a large scale project that collected data on stress from 14,000 managers across several dozen countries. I worked with international partners for several years via email, but it wasn’t until we met in person at a conference that they became real people. I find it is no different when you finally meet someone in person who you have only interacted with at virtual meetings.
In order to build an organizational culture, people need to meet face-to-face. It doesn’t have to be every day, and it doesn’t mean abandoning the virtual tools. Building organizational culture requires direct communication to get to know one another a build trust that is vital to building and maintaining culture.
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