Despite the efforts that you may put into developing written procedures manuals and training, there are rules that everyone works to that are not written down.

Just as the grapevine fills the gaps left by official communications, so the unwritten rulebook covers areas that the official procedures either don’t cover at all or don’t cater for well.

Induction for a new hire includes the formal part, prescribed by the business and explaining how things are done ‘by the book’, and an informal part, learned on the shop floor, in the office, in the lunchroom or at the pub, which says “this is the way we do things around here”.

Putting in place more procedures and policing them hard may be one option for dealing with this potential problem but a hard line approach can breed resentment and unrest.

In any case, it just could be that the unwritten rules are the ones that are most effective. The enlightened CEO should be interested in knowing whether the effect of informal procedures (and structures) is positive or negative and then building on the positive whilst discouraging the negative.

What I am describing is sometimes called ‘company culture’ and consists of the answers to a number of important questions. Questions like: “what does it take to get fired around here?” and “how do I get promoted?” and “how do I work best within this community?”

Many CEOs are more responsible for the culture than they think. Their actions, as opposed to the official words, indicate to employees that different values are at play and they subtly adjust to that.

Being consistent – and changing when circumstances dictate – are important qualities in a good manager and are especially important in a good CEO. The CEO needs to understand the culture and also to appreciate that he may have to work somewhat harder than most to discover it.

Just as the rules are informal, so are the methods for keeping abreast of them. Joiners will have begun to pick up the informal rules and you can learn a lot by routinely chatting to the newest people in the business.

Chatting is a good method for discovering what really happens anyway. Tom Peters referred to it as Management by Walking About, but it really is as simple as getting out of your office, when time permits (and most certainly not on a predictable schedule), and just walking around the office, factory or store and talking to people.

If you are approachable, ask open questions and people see things changing for the better, they’ll tell you what you need to know. Sometimes, what you learn may lead to the need for disciplinary action but a word in the right place and at the right time can avoid that.

Finding one idea that improves the business and then implementing it (and crediting the original idea) can have a massively positive effect on morale.

You won’t stop new hires ‘catching’ the culture when they join, but you can limit the culture’s potential to derail the business.

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By Brian Chernett  on   Jul 26,2008

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Keywords

management    recruiting    staff    communications    culture   

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