“My expectations for you far exceed those set within the company” – Boss

My boss’ opening line to our goals and expectations meeting — “My expectations for you far exceed those set within the company”. My brain’s internal monologue “Interesting…” accompanied by acute stress and slight panic. Chris, followed this lovely opener with an outline to what his expectations concretely looked like – being timely, reliable, professional, authentic, and transparent in communication. These things made sense to me. In my head they fit the model of expected existence within a corporate setting – little did I know that corporate culture falls short of these expectations day in and out.

A large part of my internship is centered on dissecting the mannerisms, norms, expectations and realities that follow suite in my work environment. Many of the conversations I have with my corporate guru are spent dissecting the many nuances that interlace corporate setting and culture so that we can be best equipped to provide appropriate content in our training with the hopes to lead cultural disruption – yea, my job is cool like that (lol). Consequentially, we have digested the current work expectations and culture as the following. Timeliness – it is important as long as it is viewed as a casual, non-binding, general guideline to be followed within 15 minutes of the agreed upon time. Reliability, this should in fact be a goal for all, quite sadly corporate life has drawn its existence to be rather black and white amidst the workers. In this atmosphere it is general knowledge that you either fill this role or do not. Professionalism, just like chivalry, is not dead. This is one factor that can be rather trusted to maintain status quo within the booming power hierarchy – though my guru tends to fight it sporting sneakers and polo shirts amidst the masses of jackets and shiny shoes. Authenticity is wavering yet broadcasted as holding importance which is a strong step in the right direction. Finally, transparency in communication, a seemingly spotty concept at best is bestowed upon the few. With the masses resting in emotions of frustration, as systematic people pleasing rules the direction of their projects and interactions. While one can most definitely find pockets where these statements are contested the big picture zoom out tends to yield these lagging realities within company culture. Alas, Chris’ one liner that struck momentary fear into my soul rings forth with defined meaning – he expects for me to operate above the cuff as he does to emulate a culture striving to be better.

While the above picture painted appears rather bleak and non-progressive there are many silver linings encompassed in the companies more recent programming. There has been recent momentum behind a cultural shift coined at promoting empowerment, inclusion, teamwork and transparency through the military leadership program titled Thayer. The company has been sending groups of workers to West Point to go through there 3 day leadership development programing for the past few years. Which has resulted in a more prolific vocabulary surrounding idealistic company culture – a step in the right direction – however, sadly, little cultural shift. This is where programs like Ignite that my boss operates becomes a key player in the cultural shift game. His programs seeks to meet and hear from all employees across the power structure and empower them to not only become the change they desire to see within the company, but also speak truth over the imperative role each and every one of them contributes to the companies story. More concretely, this looks like quality leadership training through small group dialogue, coupled with experiential learning leading to stronger team cooperation.

In order to actually impact the culture and norms within such a large corporation I think it is imperative that these programs become globalized. Currently, they only operate at the headquarter location by growing its breath within the company I feel that there is an improved chance of impact and longevity to be had in terms of transfer outcome. I also think by adding in a lagged post-survey evaluation of the program there is a greater chance of accurate evaluation to be noted and more strength for the training to result in impact (Saks & Burke, 2012). Overall organizational culture has come a long way but as always has space to improve. In the meantime I’m enjoying being on the side to help lead that change and am hopeful for others to be joining me here in the near future.