The Importance of Culture in Organizations

What You Will Learn An organization culture relates to your success and happiness. In any business environment, when the employee and employer are on the same plane, success is much more likely. When making a lateral move, it is important to select your employer based on your preference of work culture. The key to defining job satisfaction is to determine which culture suits you the best. You need to feel comfortable and appreciated in your work environment.

Employees’ level of success and overall happiness has more to do with a particular culture (which is sometimes also referred to as the personality of an organization) than with any other factor. This article discusses (a) the importance of organizational culture, (b) why some employees do not give strong consideration to culture, (c) the reason that failure to seriously consider culture prematurely ends many careers, and (d) why making a lateral move provides the best opportunity to evaluate culture and the course of your career.Just as the work, salary, and prestige level can vary from employer to employer, the cultures within each organization can be very different. Consider the following examples:

• There are organizations in which style is definitely valued over substance.
• There are organizations in which substance is definitely valued over style.
• There are organizations in which people wander around in Birkenstocks and call each other ‘dude’.
• There are organizations in which employees are expected to call superiors ‘Mister’ and ‘Ms.’.
• There are organizations in which employees need to make appointments with superiors before speaking with them.
• There are organizations in which supervisors chew tobacco in the office and during meetings.
• There are organizations that value your having string family connections more than your work ability.
• There are organizations that are extremely secretive with their employees.
• There are organizations that believe everyone who puts in a solid effort over the course of six or seven years should be promoted.
• There are organizations in which employees work around thirty hours per week, which is considered a good effort.
• There are organizations in which employees are hired and are then almost universally encouraged to leave after five or six years of service.
• There are organizations that have been collapsing for years, but which portray themselves to employees as strong and secure.

I could go on and on. Suffice it to say, however, that your success and happiness in your career may have more to do with your thoughtful and intelligent decision to join an organization that best fits you culturally. People simply want to be around people they like, and when people like each other in the workplace, both sides of the relationship benefit.

OBSERVATION:

We all have certainly heard that Albert Einstein flunked out of grade school. Perhaps Einstein was too concerned with the theoretical rather than the practical. Whatever the reason was, Einstein simply did not experience success in the environment he was in at the time because the school, and the people in it, could not understand or appreciate where he was coming from intellectually. Do the employees in your organization understand where you are coming from? In a business environment, when the employee and the employer see eye to eye, success is far more likely than in situations where they do not.

Employees Often Fail to Give Strong Consideration to Culture When Choosing an Employer.

The problem with the way many employees manage their careers is that, when choosing a job, they are motivated primarily by prestige and money, more so than by the cultures of the organizations they are considering.

When an employee instead evaluates offers based upon where she believes she fits in the best, that employee is far more likely to find happiness and success in her career. The problem, however, is that most employees simply do not think this way, the reason being that employees are competitive by nature, and “fitting in” is not nearly as easy to quantify as things like money, company cars, etc.

In almost all respects, it is most difficult to gain the best positions with the largest, most prestigious, and highest-paying employers. Yet, the pressure to join these organizations typically commences while an individual is in school.

The problem with this type of thinking is that it can often lead employees to make horrible career decisions. If an employee is always thinking in terms of what he can do to look best to others, he will often neglect what is best for him personally. None of this is to say that there are not numerous advantages to come from being part of a truly significant organization. Nonetheless, this should not be the only consideration on which an employee bases his career choices.

OBSERVATION:

Many people, in fact, have subordinated much of their happiness in life in pursuit of money, respect, power, and admiration from their peers. This leads many people to base their entire concept of happiness on things like having the largest house, the most expensive car, and other traditional accouterments of the American Dream.

Failing to Consider Culture Ends Many Careers Prematurely–

Careers that Could Have Otherwise Been Highly Successful.

It is easy to find out an organization’s compensation structure, but this is a simple and superficial distinction to make between organizations. It is not as easy to gauge an organization’s prestige level; however, it is much more difficult to evaluate a organization’s culture and whether that working in that culture will keep you happy over the course of your career.

One of the largest mistakes employees make when evaluating competing offers from organizations is believing that money is the most important factor they should be considering. While money is certainly an important component of any analysis, it is not the most important factor. Making any career decision solely based on money can be a horrible mistake. If you properly assess all variables, including culture, and you choose the right organization, you may have a stable career and life. If you go to an organization just because of monetary considerations, you may wind up so disgruntled that you are eventually not working at all.

OBSERVATION:

On a day-to-day basis, in each of our offices, we speak with employees who began their careers with ultra-prestigious, high-paying law firms. Many of these attorneys stopped practicing law two to seven years into their careers because they became disillusioned. Most of these lawyers say things like “I would never work in another law firm. I would only work as an in-house attorney. The résumés of these attorneys are sometimes littered with one firm job after another, where the next and then the next firm were virtually identical in terms of culture to the very first firm that the attorney joined right out of law school. Of course these attorneys are not happy practicing in a law firm. They have only worked for one type of law firm during their entire career. The problem is that these attorneys have worked in a firm culture that was such a bad fit for them that they never got the opportunity to experience practicing law with a group of people they like, respect, and emotionally profit from. Not all law firms are the same. Fitting in with the community of lawyers that make up a particular firm is the key to long-term success and satisfaction in law firm life. Not fitting in is often the key to failure, and can even lead to one changing one’s career path altogether.

Consider the choice of where to live, and compare the process of making that decision with choosing to join any particular firm or organization. Some people prefer the lifestyle in New York to Los Angeles, or prefer San Francisco to Seattle. Preference for one city or neighborhood is entirely personal and individual. The considerations are whether we feel accepted and appreciated in a community and whether we see people around us that share similar goals and aspirations. Whether that community supports and enhances your lifestyle becomes a driving force in your deciding where to live. And, just like you need to feel that you can thrive in the community in which you live, you should feel that you can thrive in the environment in which you work.

You should constantly ask yourself these questions: Is this organization a place where I will feel accepted? Will I be surrounded by people with the same values and goals? Will this organization complement my lifestyle? Boiled down, what is the culture of the organization?

Making a Lateral Move is Your Best Chance to Find Your Perfect Firm Culture

Many of our candidates, when preparing for an interview, want help identifying those questions that will help them unearth the true culture at a firm. In short form, the question that needs to be answered for each lawyer and every employee is simply, “Will I like it at this firm or organization?” Unfortunately, try as we might, we cannot always answer these questions as well as we would like. The culture of a firm may vary from practice group to practice group, and it is impossible to pin down with any meaningful certainty whether or not a good firm is always a good fit. Often, the only way to learn this is to actually go to the interviews and speak with the attorneys or individuals you may be working with.

It’s important to remember that the interview process for a lateral move is much different from when a law student interviews for a summer clerkship. This is a plus. Unlike summer associate openings, which can sometimes number in excess of 100, when a law firm conducts a lateral search many candidates are interviewing for one, or possibly two available openings. In these situations the law firm is not as concerned with competing for any one particular candidate. Conversely, when a firm is in a heightened state of competitiveness, it can sometimes be more difficult for the lawyer interviewing for the job to get a sense of whether the particular law firm is comprised of people with whom the lawyer would want to spend the rest of his or her career. But this is the kind of firm you should be seeking. Keep your best interests at heart, and do everything you possibly can to ensure that you find a good fit. Obviously, your task is to get the job; however, you also need to understand the firm’s culture. At BCG we have identified several ways in which you can evaluate whether a particular firm is right for you.

Preparation is the First Key to Evaluating Culture.

You’ve gotten an interview. Before the interview, you should research as much as possible to determine the objective factors: How big is the office? What is the salary? In our opinion, this objective fact gathering is helpful in determining how well the firm or organization is doing financially, and how it has grown over time.

Diversity. It may also be important for you to look at the firm’s or organization’s commitment to diversity. We don’t know of any organization that doesn’t have an anti-discrimination policy. However, some organizations are more proactive in this area than others. Is it important to you that there are employees of color or of various sexual orientations?

Location, location, location. Where is the office located? Of all these factors, we find that this tends to be the least important factor in evaluating culture. A California company known for having employees that wear Birkenstock sandals around the office might have a New York office with that same type of atmosphere. However, even in Hawaii or Miami, there are going to be radical distinctions amongst organizations. These distinctions are important. The city makes little difference, in regards to the type of culture that exists within the organization. There are laid-back firms and organizations in Chicago that are down the block from offices where you wouldn’t think of entering without wearing your most formal business attire. The key is identifying and understanding the various cultures of the organizations themselves.

Governance. How an organization conducts its day-to-day business is important. Employees have to run the business of their organization, and how they choose to structure the organization can say a lot about its culture. The business model often reveals the core values of the organization. Generally, organizations are governed in one of several ways:

The democratic organization allows each employee to become involved in the decision-making, regarding anything from new hires to compensation to long-term planning. For many organizations, the democracy may only include supervisors, so it is not necessarily realistic that a junior employee will be making high-level management decisions, or even weighing in with an opinion. However, many democratically run organizations do have some level of junior involvement within the organization’s governance, such as on pro bono committees or with respect to summer associate entertaining and recruiting. This type of culture is entirely inclusive, although sometimes it is the result of too much administration bogging down each individual lawyer’s already heavy workload. The values reflected here are participation and integration, which may come at the cost of expediency and/or consistency.

Many organizations govern using a small, centralized committee of decision makers, which results in greater consistency, in terms of vision and management. However, this culture is more exclusive in terms of firm governance, which may turn off the young attorney or employee who wants to be a part of the decision-making and planning efforts of an organization. In this system of governance, it’s important to find out how the leaders are chosen and the values they hold dear.

At the end of the day, however, what is more important than the method of governance is the reason behind why a particular organization chooses the business model it does. Asking an organization’s superiors why things are the way they are helps define an organization’s culture and vision for the future. If you hear that the goals of the business match yours, you have likely found a culture in which you will be succeed and be happy.

Word on the Street. You probably know the reputation of the organization where you’re interviewing. Is it known around town as a sweatshop or a quality-of-life organization? BE CAREFUL! Even if a reputation is mostly on target, you could end up joining a practice area or working with a partner that is decidedly unlike the overall firm or business culture.

“Lifestyle” or “quality-of-life” are other ways the business community may refer to a certain organization. These terms have become somewhat hackneyed of late, but still have value in terms of defining a particular organization. A quality-of-life organization is fairly self-explanatory, which is to say that the organization has placed a premium on allowing associates to have lives outside of work. What does that mean? Sometimes, it means a slightly lower billable hour requirement than at other firms. Other times, it may mean that the firm’s or organization’s management is more amenable to situations other than typical full-time associate positions, including part-time, telecommuting, flex-time, or non-partnership track. The popularity of this term has caused it to be somewhat diluted. Don’t take these types of labels at face value, and investigate what that term means within a particular firm.

Again, be careful. Sometimes attorneys and job seekers interviewing for a position swing too far in terms of evaluating. Spending all of your time in this process wondering, “What can the law firm or business do for me?” will prevent you from showing a potential employer that you are a good match for it. This is a two-way street, so showing a law firm or other organization what you are made of is just as important during an interview as evaluating the organization.

Conclusions

The key to true job satisfaction is determining which organization’s culture suits you and your career. Finding the right culture will allow you to find a job that won’t feel like work. What is going to make the difference over time is not a $5,000 per year salary differential, but whether or not you feel comfortable and appreciated in a particular environment. No matter what the reputation of the organization is, going through the process of discovering who the people are and what they think of you and your skills will be the best indicators of your potential long-term satisfaction and success.

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Your Ability to be Free Will Determine Your Success

A very crucial part of your future success and happiness is having the ability to be free. The concept of freedom is difficult for most people to truly understand because hardly anyone is really free, in the deepest sense of the word. Most people are trapped by their own mental barriers, by obligations to others, by financial constraints, by habits and in many cases by actual physical barriers. Moving towards true freedom is something that will forever change your life and career, and will help you reach your full potential.

What You Will Learn Most people are trapped by a variety of barriers – either external or internal or both. Moving towards true freedom is something that will change your life and career. The more freedom you believe you have, and the more you believe you can do, the more you will achieve. Attaining psychological and financial stability, and success in your career and life typically goes along with having more freedom.

The founding principles of the United States were largely based on the idea of freedom for all citizens, as exemplified by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Also, the United States generally speaks out aggressively against countries that limit freedom of speech and religion. Entire wars have been built around the concept of providing freedom to various people. Perhaps the biggest shame in our history revolves around an era when slavery, a willful limiting of freedom, was pervasive in our society.

The entire fabric of our nation is built upon freedom and as a country we are always pushing towards equality for all people. For example, there have been a lot of recent debates about giving gay people the freedom to marry. Before that there was much debate about gays in the military. And a few decades ago equal rights for women and people of all races were major social issues.

Because society overall values the idea of freedom as an inherent human right, if someone commits a crime, society will generally limit the person’s freedom in some way, as punishment. Society will place the person in prison, in home detention, or on probation. The least desirable people end up in prison, and experience the ultimate limiting of their freedom.

At the same time, making money is also highly valued by most societies. What does making money represent other than having more freedom to purchase things, to go wherever we want, or to not have to work? Money represents freedom for most working people.

Yesterday in the New York Times there was an article about people who have lost their jobs and are hiking around the United States. The people have beards, live off of handouts and, for the most part, have no responsibilities other than to make sure they eat and survive. Apparently, this hiking around has become quite popular, as more and more people have lost their jobs over the past few years. The article painted a picture of the people who were hiking as people who were living a life that was neither honorable nor fun. They were portrayed sort of like beggars and societal throwaways.

I have never respected this way of life. I think this is because it has always been drilled into me that it is important to have duties and to do things a certain way. I have a job, car payments, a mortgage, a wife, a daughter and lots of other responsibilities. In fact, from the moment I get up each day to the time I go to bed I am involved in one responsibility after another. Even my weekends are filled by various responsibilities. I probably could not go on a two-week hike through the wilderness, even if I wanted to.

For some reason, I have been seeing a lot of documentaries lately about children who are reunited with their mothers after being put up for adoption when they were younger. In most of these shows the mother who gave up her child for adoption is interviewed and says something like “I was not ready for the responsibility,” or “I wanted freedom and I was young.” The mother is always portrayed as someone who is in the wrong for her decision, and she is often not respected for her actions. Society typically assumes that the person should bear the responsibility of raising her own child.

Raising a child, working in a job, supporting a family and so forth are all “barriers” and things that limit our personal freedoms. The message that society sends to us from a young age is that the limiting of these freedoms is the expected course of our life and becoming an adult, and that being a productive member of society involves accepting these barriers and an inherent lack of certain freedoms that comes along with them. Going to school creates a lack of freedom because during school we cannot work or do other things. Children who do not go to school are considered vagrants and are deemed bad. Getting married creates a lack of freedom. Most religions have certain rules that go along with them that limit what people can eat, or drink, or wear. In order to adapt and to be a part of society, most of us subject ourselves to various limits upon our freedom.

I myself am trapped by the idea that I need to work, that I need to be a responsible husband and father and that I need to be a certain person. In short, I have lots of rules for how I believe I should be acting and what I should be doing with my time. I do not look at any of this in a negative sort of way, it just is. Most people have to be at work each day. They have various things they need to be doing and places they are supposed to be at appointed times. They have banks and others they need to give their money to. They have children they need to support. They have duties they need to fulfill to organizations. Most of our lives are taken up doing one thing after another, and eventually we feel trapped.

The more trapped people are, the less free they are. In order to make the most of your life and career you need to understand the limits that may infringe upon on your freedoms–and then decide which ones you can do without.

Most people are trapped simply by their thinking, and therefore struggle to enjoy life. Our thinking is the greatest limit we impose on any of our freedoms. Believing you need to be a certain sort of person, that you need to behave a certain way, that you need to be doing a certain type of job, that you need to only associate with certain types of people and more–all limit our sense of freedom.

I used to be an attorney and I did not enjoy it at all. I realized I was in a “respectable” profession, however, after a while I began to feel imprisoned by my job for the following reasons:

• I had to be in the office all the time,
• I could not take vacations without having to worry about deadlines,
• I was always supervised and at the mercy of clients, courts and higher up attorneys.

This is the way of life for most attorneys in large law firms. They may make good livings, but it is very difficult for them to enjoy their lives and careers–or the fruits of their labor. Moreover, because they do not have other skills, they cannot seek other employment, and go through life exceedingly unhappy. There are exceptions, of course, but many attorneys live like this. The thought that they need to be attorneys is what imprisons these people. If they thought differently their lives would become different and they might be happier. Most people never abandon this thought process, however. They remained imprisoned, out of a fear of what might happen, should they deviate from the prescribed path.

Our presumptions of what we should be doing imprison us; however, our presumptions of what we should not be doing also imprison us. Many people do not do the sorts of jobs they are good at and would like to do because they do not believe these jobs are respectable. Many people do not marry the sorts of people they would like to because of differences in social class or religion. Many people never come out of the closet, because they do not believe being gay is respectable.

I cannot believe how much I enjoy my life and how different my life has become since I learned to think differently. For as long as I can remember I have done self-hypnosis to “charge up” my mind and convince myself on a subconscious level that I can do all sorts of incredible things and follow my dreams. I have literally programmed my mind to change my thinking for the better. This has made a huge difference in my life in all respects. Self-hypnosis has enabled me to go beyond the limits my mind has set for me, and attain freedom.

When you see the most successful people in any profession, you will generally find people who have dismissed the limits on what is possible for them, who worked on their minds to limit, or eliminate, various mental barriers they once had. The fewer barriers we see, the more we can achieve. The more freedom we believe we have, and the more we believe we can do, the more we will achieve.

Obligations to others is also something that often limits our freedom. These obligations could be to members of our religious group, our employer, our children, our spouse, or otherwise. Obligations to others are a necessary part of being a responsible adult; however, many people allow these obligations and commitments to control their lives altogether. They are trapped in relationships with spouses, relatives and others. I once knew of a man whose wife would never let him leave home, except to go to work. When he would leave for reasons other than work she would feign some sort of sickness, or crisis, to keep him at home. The man scarcely was able to leave the confines of his house except with his wife, or from 9 to 5 when he was at his job. This is more common than you might think. A great many people find their freedoms limited by others.

Financial obligations can also limit our freedom. Financial obligations may make it virtually impossible for some people to ever stop working–or take a simple break now and then. These people may take on giant mortgages, car payments, loans and so forth, which limit their freedom. These obligations make it difficult for these people to do anything but their jobs, even if they would like to do something else.

At the same time, a lack of money also limits our freedom. The more money people have to spend the more they can do. If you have enough money you can retire from your job. You can start a business, or take a vacation. Lack of money for many people is a continual reminder that they lack freedom. Money buys freedom, to some extent.

Habits limit our freedom. Many people engage in substance abuse and have other problems that limit their ability to travel and do many things. Several years ago I wanted a friend of mine, with whom I had grown up, to come visit me from another state. He told me he wanted to come visit me but he confided in me before he took the trip:

“Listen, can you get any pot? I smoke it every day and I do not want to travel with it on a plane because I might get busted.”

When I told him I did not know where someone could buy this, he told me he could not visit. A few weeks later he called and said he found someone in Los Angeles who would meet him at the airport with some pot so he could come to visit. The reason this was so fascinating for me to hear was because he was literally “grounded” in a city–all due to his drug habit. I have known people who were alcoholics who refused to have dinner in restaurants that did not serve hard liquor. Imagine not having the freedom to eat at certain restaurants because of a habit that severely limits your freedom.

Finally, many people are limited by physical constraints. If you lived in North Korea, this would be a physical constraint that limited your ability to be successful. Similarly, if you are living in a small town in the middle of nowhere, and have incredible talent as an actor, music conductor, or otherwise, you are physically limited, and would have greater opportunity in a larger city. If you get sent to prison you are, of course, limited physically as well.

Attaining psychological and financial stability, and success in your career and life typically goes along with having more freedom. Most people do not perceive they are free, and they constantly create barriers to their freedom, which limits them in everything that they do. Your ability to create a world around you that supports and does not limit your freedom will determine your ultimate level of success.