Something They Forgot to Teach

You may be saying to yourself, "I have this career thing figured out", well with your great new job, newly minted graduate degree and high recommendations. But don’t get ahead of yourself. Until you truly take a look around and understand the culture of your company, you just may be treading water.

At my company I see it all around me day in and day out. Brilliant minds with horizontal job growth because they just don’t understand the company culture. These are individuals with master’s degrees and PhDs that graduated from top colleges, yet they lack the vision and ability to stop for a second and ask themselves, why I am not moving up the so called "corporate ladder?" This culture comes with a certain set of unspoken rules to follow in order to get ahead. I’m not saying that you have to kiss your bosses behind in order to adapt to your companies culture, but just being able to observe the significant rules of engagement, and follow those rules can vastly improve your chances for advancement and success. For example at my work we have a few managers that are just barely into their thirties, they got to these positions because of their understanding of the organization in which we work. They are the first ones in the office and the last ones to leave. They always make sure they get the job done right the first time and keep close relationships with their clients. These subtle seemingly menial tasks are what give them that extra edge for success.

For example my company’s culture is deeply ingrained in the American Midwestern ways of business practice. The fancy client dinners and rounds of golf. As well the slow adaptation to teleconferencing, where face to face meetings are still standard protocol. Now my company is just one example, as there are many different types of corporate company cultures out there, each very unique. For instance if you tried to take the rules of my companies culture and use them at say a Japanese company, your results of success would be very different. As each company has its own culture and unspoken rules to follow in order to comply and give you a shot at making it to the top. In some research done by Prudential, they asked 72 personnel managers working for multinationals to name the traits required for success. Nearly 35% said culture adaptability, patience, flexibility and tolerance for others' beliefs. Only 22% of them listed technical and management skills. (Legacee, 2009). This just furthers my point that adaptability overshadows technical skills in the eyes of most managers and companies.

I also see at my work the individuals who have the culture understood to a tee. These employees may not have acquired all the advanced degrees of the studious degree hungry employee, but they took the time to observe and soak up the company culture. These individuals learn to understand the patterns of work of successful managers; they learn to work on their social and speaking skills, so they seem well versed in meetings. These same individuals are not afraid to ask their boss questions about their future and take on new challenges. They are the ones that observe that it is best to talk to your boss on Tuesdays not Fridays, and focus on the small little know subtle rules. They wore ties or dressed nice when the time was right, and just observed how their superiors played the game. These employees understand that you follow the chain of command for getting projects approved and you do not under any circumstances tattle tell on any of your co-workers. Now you see understanding these subtle, yet critical pieces to the corporate culture you are a part of can lead to success at any company or place you work for in the future. By recognizing the rules of the workplace and applying them. I’m not telling you to give up your unique characteristics and become a company drone, adjusting while still maintaining your character and individuality are the keys. Being able to recognize your companies’ culture is a vital skill that you as a valuable employee can take with you to any organization you may work for in the future.

This is something you do not learn in school, a set of tools for your career that can help you walk the path to the top. Hopefully somewhere along the way you are able to utilize your skill set and become a vital part of a great organization. But you have to learn to adapt to your new companies culture and bring with you bits and pieces of your acquired knowledge and observations that will help you succeed. For example you would not want to take the culture of a police department with you to work at a small Christian company would you? The answer is no, that each culture has its own underlying theme, and then learning the pieces of that theme along the way leads you to up the ladder of corporate success. You wouldn’t use equations you learned in a math class to help you figure out a word problem in English class, but you could use some of the same study techniques in both classes to help you get ahead. The same goes for learned observations at your work.

So all I am saying is that you work hard to obtain those advanced degrees, get those wonderful letters of recommendation, land that great job, and put in your excellent work ethic day in and day out. But at some point you must stop to observe what is going on around you, learn the rules of the culture, play by those rules, adapt your personality to fit within the parameters of those rules and climb that ladder all the way to the top.