My Climate v/s Your Climate

We have these words thrown about in articles, #leaderspeak, workshops etc. – Organisational climate, office culture and so on.

I really did not understand this until very recently when I heard a first-hand experience of how it affects employees from a friend. Here’s what she had to say:

We had a team meeting and people were discussing how the office boy was rude, or did not respond to requests. It turns out he had spoken to one of us, and told her that he hated it here, and that he did not like coming to office because no one was really friendly to him.

And while I did feel he was rude, I thought I should give it a shot and maybe try changing my attitude and see how, if at all, it helps.

It started with a simple good morning, a thank you smile for the tea he brought and other small things. And I could feel the change in him in five days. He smiled more, he complained less, he’d listen to me when I asked something and almost always said yes to my requests. He even started joking about the little things.

And it made me wonder that maybe there were times he was at fault and that he should have done something differently, but I did nothing to alleviate the situation either. I assumed that he was supposed to just pander to our requests and did not think about his experience of the office culture.

It does not matter what culture the company promotes – you have to embrace it and understand that your actions make the climate for someone else. You might not be THE problem in the system, but you definitely can bring about a change.

It is said that, organizational climate is how the employees experience the culture of the organisation – irrespective of what the culture itself may be; it is the perception of the employee that makes his/her climate.

“A positive workplace is no longer a nice-to-have proposition, but an urgent consideration and a prerequisite for organisations to move forward.”

As we step boldly into the new generation of working environments, where employees are not “just another” resource, where we talk about ownership and progress, we need to look within ourselves and sow the seeds of leadership right away. The age bar of our leaders is getting lower by the year, and we are seeing an era where young ambition meets sage experience to bring innovation to the table.

In the midst of this we cannot forget to forge a “climate” to nourish all talent and create the incubation grounds for future leaders among our ranks