Welcome on board!

Management systems, including quality management systems, must be set up in such a way that they fit in with the organisational culture. A good culture is important to everyone, strengthens employee loyalty and supports employer branding.

That doesn't require any extra article. It's obvious! 

True. But why do management systems and organisational culture so often drift apart? Why are the specified processes often perceived as disruptive? Why do we sometimes feel that processes slow us down? And why do new managers have to question everything that has been working great for years?

One possible answer: because new employees always bring a piece of their old company's culture with them to a new company and do not yet fully understand the culture of the new organisation.

But let's start at the beginning. It is important to understand the definition:

«Culture is a shared product of shared learning»

(Edgar H. Schein & Amy Edmondson).

This means that culture develops within a group in response to something new. In other words, a team that works together is constantly confronted with problems or disruptive factors for which it must find solutions in order to deal with them. Some solutions fail, some solutions are successful. The successful solutions are replicated when similar situations arise again. If these are successful again, the team begins to accept them as ‘the’ solution. They have ‘learned’ how to deal with such situations and developed their own culture.

This shared learning process brings people together and leads to a group developing its own values. This often happens unconsciously. You don't even think about the fact that others outside this group might have different ideas or values.

If an employee changes jobs and goes to a new company, they take their ‘learning package’ with them and, probably without knowing it, join a team with its own, different ‘learning package’. 

Let's imagine the following scenario: The owner of an SME that has previously acted as a supplier for medical device manufacturers conducts a market analysis and realises that she has everything she needs to launch a medical device herself. Everything except a development department. But no problem, a competent developer, let's call him Stefan, with excellent references and many years of experience with a distributor is quickly found. And everyone even likes him. Nothing can go wrong now. Two years later, the owner scraps the project. It was probably too big a challenge after all.

What happened?

Stefan had successfully brought several products to market in his old company. He had continuously optimised the process with each new project. The familiar procedure gave him confidence; he had already passed countless audits without any deviations, and it was clear to him that the process had been perfected to such an extent that it could only go well. Logically, he adopted the process 1:1 in the new company. Nothing existed there yet, so he could start from scratch. Why reinvent the wheel when he already had the ideal solution in his pocket? In his old company, values such as cooperation and commitment were central. 

Accordingly, the process included many small meetings for mutual coordination, but only a few phase reviews at long but clearly defined intervals, during which it was checked whether all the necessary documents and approvals were available and the project was on track so that the product would meet customer requirements. Due to the smaller meetings, Stefan was certain that the phase reviews were only formal in nature and, as in his past, there was no need for loops for rework. He was therefore confident that the set timeline could be met. And he was completely relaxed, even though the owner frequently asked if everything was going well and said that her sales department was waiting for the product.

The problem was that the new company was very competitive and wanted to quickly present a marketable product to its customers. The salespeople were becoming increasingly nervous because they had nothing to show the customers. Instead, they were constantly receiving meeting invitations. But they didn't have time for that. They need to visit the customers! What does Stefan want to discuss all the time? It makes no sense for us to only focus on ourselves; we need to address the needs of the customers! 

Without further ado, the salespeople showed the latest designs they had seen to their main customers. Of course, the customers had suggestions for improvement that had to be incorporated.  

Due to the many changes, the deadlines for the phase reviews, which had been set long in advance, could not be met and had to be constantly postponed. As a result, these deadlines were no longer considered binding, and when they did take place, the to-dos had not been completed. 

This, in turn, led to disputes between sales and development. No one understood how it was possible to be so incompetent as to simply not do the right thing.

After two years, the owner pulled the emergency brake. The project had become far too expensive.

This example shows what can happen when we are unaware of our organisational culture and, with the best of intentions, get it wrong. So what can we do?

The onboarding of new employees should not be limited to the technical aspects of the job. There should also be sufficient time to introduce them to the organisational culture. If Stefan had known that flexibility towards customers was considered more important than internal commitment, he would have had the opportunity to understand the sale and respond accordingly. 

In addition, we should make managers aware that employees bring processes and culture from their previous companies with them and that this can lead to inconsistencies, so that they can provide support when needed or, in the worst case, intervene. The owner could have brought everyone together at a very early stage and reconciled the different requirements.

We should support new employees in carefully incorporating their previous experience so that, together with the team, they can exploit the potential of both organisational cultures. Suggestions for change made by them should be reviewed by those affected, such as the sales department, and jointly adapted to the existing culture before being adopted. Sometimes, small adjustments or knowledge of why something needs to be changed are enough.

Recruitment is at least as important as onboarding. When new people are hired, it should be a conscious decision whether we hire people who fit the organisational culture or deliberately bring new impetus to the existing structure from outside. This decision should be clearly communicated to all those affected. The company in our example has never developed a medical device on its own. Perhaps the internal commitment that Stefan brought with him as a value would have been good for the entire organisation?

Let us realise that the alignment of the management system with the culture is not just empty wisdom, but something we can actively work towards! 

Welcome on board, culture!