“Culture: The Most Powerful Force In An Organization”Lesson Application from Linda Sasser

For our application on culture this month let’s dig into the realities of how we are living out the culture we want to create in our organization, family, church, or school system.

I think it’s worthy to reflect on a statement John makes in this lesson regarding the tangible and intangible aspects of a culture. “The intangibles may be harder to grasp, but they give a better read on the organizations true personality.”

Our behavior supersedes our statements when defining and finding the true culture.

For example, when I owned my own business we were in a competitive industry that lived and died on serving clients. To grow our business we needed repeat customers and new customers every week. So I needed to create a culture that supported this important business objective. Below is a small sampling of our actions divided into John’s three key culture builder elements.

Behavior - We had an empty chair at our team meetings. This chair represented the client sitting around our table; a constant reminder that no decisions should be made without considering the client’s perspective. Client calls always took priority no matter what task was going on.

Symbols – We worked after hours if a