Is your business too nice? Reflections on Corporate Culture

Corporate “culture” refers to the accepted codes of behaviour within business organisations. If you’re interested in this topic there’s an amusing blog in the Harvard Business Review which argues that many firms have got a problem because they are too nice.

The author argues that avoiding conflict is one of the most common characteristics of corporate cultures – and a big source of potential problems. It seems smart (and polite) to avoid conflict but a business may just be storing up problems by doing so.

This becomes especially evident when tackling strategic issues. It’s unlikely that rival visions of direction will match up if different departments are expected to work it out amongst themselves. But in “nice” cultures where people don’t regularly ask the tough questions, “working it out” never happens.

In addition, the author argues that conflict avoidance is not only widespread in large-scale strategic discussions, but in day-to-day office interactions. This is where decisions are made in meetings only to be undone later when a silent dissenter is found to disagree. Then there are employees who get a huge shock from a poor performance rating, simply because her boss had never given her honest feedback and said that there were problems.

The article and related responses are well worth reading yourself and it even offers tips for those firms that may be experiencing the problem. As with almost everything, there’s clearly a balance to be struck. Far too many people are working for ‘nasty’ firms. That raises another whole set of problems.