It’s all around you and it’s difficult to make it tangible.
Although, sometimes, it does seem palpable. Maybe.
Companies think they have it and they’re right.
Except most times they’re not right about the one they have.
What is it?
Culture.
The word itself is meaningless.
The adjectives used to describe it are meaningful.
The behavior that reinforces it is the be-all end-all.
That is, if and only if the behavior matches the actual company culture the organization wants to promote.
In The Hiring Prophecies: Psychology behind Recruiting Successful Employees (and this link gets you a signed copy for a materials fee only), I wrote extensively about culture, how to define it, build it, promote it, and, of course, outlined the 20 most common adjectives used to describe it. Of course.
But, how is a job seeker or employee gonna notice it?
Whether it matches what they want?
The signs are everywhere.
In this video, A Story on How a Company’s Culture is All Around You, I share a story (well, you knew that already) about a time I worked with an organization who used a project name as a reminder.
It served as a constant cue to get the behavior they wanted—and needed—to get to where they wanted to go.