ORGB 3201

Ailin Li

Short paper assignment- Option 2

“Corporate culture is not a cure-all, but a good one can be more conducive to the long-term

development of the company.” This is what I thought after months of internship in different

companies. In addition to hard and fast rules, an enterprise should have a "soft" coordination

and cohesion, which constitutes the inner driving force of the enterprise with an invisible

restraining force, just like Frances Frei mentioned about culture as “a second lever” to guide

discretionary behavior. It led me to a question, ‘What is a good company culture?’ I believe

there is no exact definition. Based on my own experience, I think there are two essential

elements needed: openness and respect.

Openness should not only involve transparency of and acceptance of information, but also an

open communication policy. When such a policy is in place, the manager's door will be open

to every employee. It helps to encourage open feedback and discussion of any matter that is

important to the employee. In one of my internship experiences, I had to confirm with the

team leader the direction of a major project modification. However, the leader was absent due

to personal reason and was not convenient to contact. The task was an emergency on that day,

which would affect my whole plan of progress. At that moment, I chose to directly find the

department head to discuss for final decision. Thankfully, he did not turn me away because I

was a trainee and entered his office unexpectedly. He was very patient to list the points he

would look for in the project. After details were settled, he shared with me that in his

previous workplace where , subordinates were not allowed to go directly to senior leaders and
must go through a series of stages, not to mention the traineesinterns. I expressed my

incomprehension that it sounded inefficient. “This is the company's discipline. Their culture

is different from us,” the leader answered. It's not that a company is a failure without

openness. Nevertheless, an open company culture could indeed help build the enterprise

cohesion.

Similarly, iIn a workplace that leaders are honest about their mistakes and employees can

speak up, hence reduce "information asymmetry" based on hierarchical relationships, will

increase the trust environment. If an employee is frequently absent or hangs around during

work hours, it is important that manager should communicate with him/her face-to-face about

these issues. Other employees will be concerned and learn how to trust you more as a result.

Conversely, if the manager doesn’t deal with these issues, it will make things worse and thus

lose employees' respect for him. Just as Frances Frei said that trust is one of the “important

ingredients to strong leadership”. And respect is the foundation of trust.

Respect and openness could give employees enough stage and self-worth to play, so that they

have room for continuous growth in both material and spiritual aspects.

Corporate culture is not a once-and-for-all achievement. The company continues to perfect

culture in progress , and encourage employees to go beyond themselves and innovate, will

hence improve job attitude and sake of company interests.

I was lucky to work in companies that its cultures were matched with my personal value. It

drives me to another question that how to deal with the conflict between company culture and

self-worth. I hope to explore it in the following ORGB class and future work experience.