Effective Organization

You Might Not Always Get What You Want

What does it mean to have a "Formal Culture" and an "Informal Culture"?

Have you ever instituted a new policy or procedure into your organization, spent countless hours and dollars trying to drive the initiative throughout the organization, only to see it fall flat? Organizations large and small face a similar problem -- how to make their organization become what they envision it to be.

When organizational experts refer to the overall performance of an organization, they often use the word “culture”. While there is disagreement on the exact definition of organizational culture, most would agree that it includes the values and behaviors that the majority of participants engage in; what most of the people believe and do most of the time. This is called the “informal culture” as compared to the “formal culture”, or what the leadership wants the culture to be. It makes no difference if your organization is a large corporation, a small “mom and pop”, a non-profit, or an educational institution, each of you have a formal and informal culture. One aspect of great organizations is that they close the gap between the two cultures so that “what’s going on - out there” very much resembles the vision of leadership.

“Informal Culture is what
most of the people believe and do
most of the time.”

You may wonder if these great organizations close this culture gap by hiring the “right people”, or if they do something more intentional to close this gap. The answer quite simply is both. Great organizations start with great people, but they also understand and affect the other aspects of their culture.

The Best Organizations

The best organizations don’t stop with simply creating rules and policies, they do much more to impact the everyday behavior of their employees. If you’ll refer back to our August 2012 Post on the role of contextual factors in industrial safety incident prevention, the very best bosses and organizations understand that human performance is a result of complex systems. Organizational factors such as rules, policies, and reward systems are only a portion of the complex system that drives human performance. The best organizations understand that it is also people, both the individual and intact teams, plus surroundings that drive their overall performance. If the employee base has failed to implement a new directive from leadership, there could be several reasons affecting this. It could be that employees don’t understand the new initiative, operational pressures contradict the initiative, they don’t have the equipment necessary to make it happen, or a myriad of other factors. The very best organizations are those that are able to gather field intelligence detailing actual performance and factors driving the performance, and then institute corrective measures that enable the workforce to align their own performance with the vision of leadership.

So what does that mean for you if you are in an organization with a gap between your formal and informal cultures? We would first encourage you to perform a cultural analysis to get a better understanding of your informal culture. With this knowledge you will be able to understand what contextual factors are driving the performance of your employees. This information will allow you to initiate corrective measures to close the gap between your formal and informal cultures. The best organizations don’t make the mistake of simply focusing on changing people, they focus on the entire context to enable those on board to perform to a higher standard.

3 Considerations When Implementing New Policies & Procedures




1.  The Individual Employee (Self):







4 Steps to Influence Mission "Buy-in"

How can I influence employees to "buy-in" to the mission of the organization?  As we stated in our last newsletter, the mission of an organization “is its reason for existing, its purpose, where it is headed”.  People need to know, understand and “buy-in” to the mission so that they can “get on board” and help with its accomplishment.  But how can you get them “on board”?

Average organizations assume that people are on board when they read the mission statement, so they place signs and even plaques around their facilities, on the walls in conspicuous places, so that employees are always aware of the mission.  We call this “buy-in by proclamation” and it is a strategy that a lot of managers use when giving assignments and introducing change.  However, while awareness is essential, it is not sufficient for buy-in.

The key is to “influence”, not to dictate or merely proclaim.   Influence is not related to “power” but rather to understanding and therefore requires communication of the impact of accepting the mission and the individual’s role in its accomplishment.  This requires communication of something more than the mere mission statement.  It requires communication of the relationship of the organization’s mission to the success of the organization, the individual and society in general.  We recommend following a 4-step process in communicating these relationships.

  • Articulate the importance of the mission to the success of the organization.
  • Articulate the importance of the mission to the individual team members.
  • Articulate the importance of the mission to society/customers.
  • Communicate 1, 2 and 3.

While we could discuss these steps in the abstract, it might be helpful to use a specific example, so let’s use The RAD Group’s mission statement as that example.

“The RAD Group’s mission is to improve individual, team and organizational performance.  We seek to provide products and services that help leaders create a culture in which employees are skilled, motivated and able to serve all stakeholders - employees, investors/owners, customers and others.”

1.  Articulate the importance of the mission to the success of the organization.  This mission statement helps to guide our decision making relative to what products and services we develop.  Not all products and services fit with our mission and we only consider those that do.  Likewise, not all products and services that fit our mission are accepted or developed; only those that are deemed to contribute to both the success of our customers and the success of The RAD Group.

2.  Articulate the importance of the mission to the individual team members.  Every team member of The RAD Group understands that his/her success is in some part tied to the success of the organization.  Likewise, every team member understands how his/her performance impacts the success of every other team member and therefore, our ability to succeed as an organization.  Marketing impacts our image, research impacts the quality of the products and services that we develop and delivery impacts our reputation and impact on the performance of our customers.  The understanding of this connectedness increases the motivation of each of our team members to work toward the accomplishment of our mission.

3.  Articulate the importance of the mission to society/customers.  This may sound a bit lofty, but we need to understand that if our mission does not provide value to society, and especially our customers, that there is little or no reason to exist as an organization.  We believe that what we do provides value to our customers by improving their performance and we constantly challenge ourselves to both demonstrate and increase that value.

4.  Communicate 1, 2 and 3.  While we do attempt to communicate our mission formally through papers, speeches and marketing materials, communication does not have to only be formal.  It can be done through conversation with customers and within the organization by respectfully challenging and evaluating ideas to determine if they align with the mission.  We bring our mission statement to life, not by having it on a plaque (although we do have it on our business cards as a reminder), but rather by asking ourselves regularly if our products and services are improving the individual, team and organizational performance of our customers.  We also attempt to measure that impact to help us fine tune those products and services.

Dreaming of Greener Pasture





  1. Specific
  2. Measurable
  3. Attainable
  4. Relevant
  5. Time Bound

