How Corporate Culture Can Slowly Turn You Into A Beast

And How You Can Protect Yourself.

I started my career with a large corporate company. It was not easy to get used to the processes they had in place.

As it is true with everything, there are good and bad aspects of the corporate culture too. The positive aspect is slowly you understand the process that you hate in the beginning, and how it helps in achieving the goals at the workplace. The worst part of it is you see your colleagues, the kind ones turned into selfish and wicked people by the system.

There are many ways in which the corporate system can bring out the nasty side of the people. Here are a few of them

Busy vs Productive

This is one trait you develop over time. There is no excuse for being “busy” all the time. You can look or feel busy, without actually accomplishing much. And you find ways to make others believe the same about you.

Being productive means you are getting quality work done that helps you get closer to reaching goals or finishing important tasks.

Being unnecessarily busy means you are trying to work on too many tasks and most of them are not the important ones. It also means not giving yourself and your loved ones much free time because you are busy with what is not important.

Way to avoid

Tim Ferriss, author of 3 New York Times bestsellers, The 4 Hour Workweek, The 4 Hour Body, and The 4 Hour Chef recommends you use to work less and get more done with these tactics:

• 80–20 Rule: You get 80% of your results from 20% of the tasks. Use this rule to identify the tasks which result in more output and spend more time on these.
• Get the most important task done by 11 AM.
• Use Software to automate whatever can be automated.

Lack of Ownership and Trust

There is a trust deficit in large corporate companies. This becomes worse as you come down the pyramid and sometimes leads to micromanagement. Eventually for the person working on a task or a project loses the sense of ownership. This leads to delays and impacts the quality of the deliverables.

You might be the person who is not trusted or you are the one who does not trust others and hence micromanages your subordinates.

Way to avoid

Everyone is required to do few unpleasant, not interesting tasks. People need trust and assurances from the top to do their responsibilities efficiently. Accountability is about empowering, encouraging your subordinates to accomplish their tasks. No one likes to be accountable.

Encourage yourself and your team to take responsibility and make changes and induce a sense of ownership of the tasks you and your team are working on it.

Comparison in the team — breaks the team

Most of the managers tend to compare the team members with each other. This is a very natural human behavior. This creates favoritism and creates issues within the team.

This does not create a healthy competition, in fact, it split the team into multiple teams.

The broken team is not productive. Each team member is just trying to be good in the eyes of the manager and focus on the quality of the work is lost.

Way to avoid

Remember you hire someone for his/her strengths, not weeknesses.

As a manager of a team, you need to understand what your team members are good at and give them work based on it. And as an individual contributor, do your job in the best way possible.

Relative Performance Analysis and Appraisal

I know a big corporate house where my friend used to work. They used to analyze the performance of individuals in a team against each other. And every year they fire employees who land up in the bottom 5%.

This stimulates unhealthy competition in the team and everyone is on his own. Individual contributors don’t ask for help from others and are always tensed. Basically, collaboration goes for a toss.

When people see their friends getting hurt, they tend to look out for other options.

Way to avoid

Shift your focus from “Competition” to “Collaboration”. Yes, it's not easy to change the culture of the whole organization, but try to change yourself and your team. Collaboration is the key to take your team to success.

Ethics at Top

“If ethics are poor at the top, that behavior is copied down through the organization. “ — Robert Noyce

If ethics are compromised at the top, middle management and then lower management follow the same. Slowly the whole organization behaves in the same way. Sooner than later, without knowing the system will corrupt you as well.

Way to avoid

In a big organization, it is not possible to change the ethics at the top. But at your own level, you should do whatever to keep your ethics in place.

Keep integrity and work ethic intact, so what if that means working a little harder. An honorable character is your best bet.

Bad corrupts the good

“Bad company corrupts good character” — Menander of Athens

The above statement is true for any bad company in any field. Like false teachings do not lead to knowledge, a bad company at the corporate level will definitely corrupt you. As such, it is critical that we are careful whom we work with

Way to avoid

The only way to save yourself from the influence of a bad company is to avoid it. Do not indulge in various Gossips happening all over the workplace. Without you knowing, these talks slowly corrupt you to the core.

Endorsement of poor work

“To not confront the poor execution and behavior is to endorse it. To not reinforce good execution and behavior is to extinguish it.” — Dic Vermeil

In my career, I have seen this in big organizations and in startups as well. In software development, you will come across scenarios where you would often come across individuals who write garbage and spend a lot of time fixing the bugs. Management thinks they are working harder than those who write good code and hence have to solve fewer bugs.

I remember in an annual review meeting I was given the example of a person who writes sh*tty code and was asked to work like him.

Way to Avoid

Never let such endorsements of bad execution and behaviors affect you. You should continue to raise the standards of your work.

Raise voice against such behaviors and execution is more important than you think. This spreads like a plague and slowly affects a lot of individuals.

Wrapping Up

Well, there are many ways in which corporate culture affects your personality and brings out the bad side of yours. I have listed the scenarios which have forced me to leave big organizations in less than 6 months.

• Busy vs Productive: Don’t be busy. Focus on being utilizing your time for the most important tasks.
• Lack of Ownership and Trust: Try to take ownership of your piece of work.
• Comparison in the team — breaks the team: You need to understand what your team members are good at and give them work based on it.
• Relative Performance Analysis and Appraisal: Build a healthy culture of collaboration.
• Ethics at Top: Keep integrity and work ethic intact irrespective of that of the top-level.
• Bad corrupts the good: Stay away from bad company.
• Endorsement of poor work: Keep the good work going. Condemn the bad execution or behavior.

Irrespective of the drawbacks, a corporate sector can be a great place to learn and for growth provided you play it sensibly.