What do yo do when you are managing in an organisation that has a poor culture?
This is the subject of a great post by Miki Saxon.
She makes the point that the starting place has to be a conscious decision that this is a place where you want to be and do great work – in spite of the culture. The alternative is to indulge in a ‘martyr complex’ the kind of ‘poor me’ response that I often hear. This usually appears as a belief that ‘there is nothing I can do to provide a great service and excellence until those above me get their act sorted’.
This is a convenient belief and a powerful one. But it does little to help us make progress. It lets us off the hook, allows us to avoid responsibility and put the blame elsewhere. Once enough of us are doing this – and our beliefs are re-enforcing each other – it can start to feel like a truth. However it is still just a belief and we can choose to drop it!
So if you take a conscious decision to keep working in a poor culture you must try to reject this belief and take all the repsonsibility that you can for making things better.
You can read the full post here.