Office Culture I – Gap Between Formal and Informal Communications Can Be Dangerous

> Office Culture Series, No. 1

There are two kinds of employee communications in an organization. The disparity between the two can destroy morale and ruin a company’s reputation.

Formal communications programs, like newsletters, intranet posts and missives from the top managers, generally adhere to the principles of openness, transparency and ethical behaviour. If you’re lucky, the formal stuff is clear, honest and low on corporate b.s.

Then there’s the way people behave and communicate with each other. It’s the real culture of an organization, and it’s usually driven by how managers talk to and treat their employees and each other. The unspoken rules of corporate culture can be sharply different from the official vision, values, mission and communications policy.

This applies to huge corporations and to non-profit groups with 18 people who get together on weekends for potluck dinners. And don’t kid yourself, the employees know when there’s a huge gap between the official communications and the real culture.

Implications for Management

A company that says it stands for open and honest communications can be implicitly encouraging illegal or deceptive behaviour through its culture.

Warren Buffett billionaire owner of the Berkshire Hathaway investment company, sums up in a memo to his managers how employee behaviour can pose a risk to the company’s reputation:

“Somebody is doing something today at Berkshire that you and I would be unhappy about if we knew of it. That’s inevitable: we now employ well over 200,000 people and the chances of that number getting through the day without any bad behaviour occurring is nil. But we can have a huge effect in minimising such activities by jumping on anything immediately when there is the slightest odour of impropriety. Your attitude on such matters, expressed by behaviour as well as words, will be the most important factor in how the culture of your business develops. And culture, more than rule books, determines how an organisation behaves.”

Phil Rudolph of Ethical Leadership Group warns that “in this era of ‘gotcha’ advocacy and instant global communication [anyone] has the power to impact an organisation’s reputation.” By anyone, he means the highest executive or the lowliest delivery truck driver.

Risk: Your organization can be damaged by impropriety, as described by Buffet. Or, something mundane may be at work, like an employee making promises to customers based on the overly optimistic official view of the situation. Either way, the company image is tarnished by the disparity between the official communications and the way things really work.

Photo of Kathryn From, CEO Bravado Designs, courtesy Tom Purves .

Tags: business, ceos, communications, pr, public relations, reputation, risk