An office recreation room that nobody uses because managers disapprove; a lavish, carefully organized launch of a new corporate vision and strategy while everyday decisions continue to move in the opposite direction; managers dutifully holding one-to-one meetings in which employees do not feel safe enough to share concerns, dissatisfaction, or corrective feedback…
These are only a few examples of situations in which symbols fail to reinforce the desired culture—and may actively undermine it.
What are cultural symbols?
A symbol is anything to which people in a company attach meaning. Any object, event, or decision can be—or become—a symbol. Symbols are observable expressions of culture: the things people notice and use to infer “how things are done here.”
Without claiming to be exhaustive, examples of symbols include:
- The design how the office looks and the way workspaces are allocated
- How people dress—the dress code
- The language people use: whether colleagues address one another formally or informally, how roles are named, the company’s internal jargon, the subjects of workplace humor, and the names given to important organizational processes
- Company-related objects and memorabilia, such as badges, uniforms, plaques, and certificates
- Routine practices, including team-building events, company celebrations, regular meetings, and the way people are welcomed into or leave the organization
- Managers’ decisions, especially in difficult or crisis situations and in controversial or conflict-related cases—including what they choose to prioritize
- Company cars and other benefits: which levels have access to them, and under what rules are they allocated?
How do everyday experiences become symbols and carry meaning?
Many things happen to people in an organization every day. Some events feel more significant than others, and people interpret them through their own perceptions in order to give them meaning.
The meaning does not reside in the event, object, or decision itself. It emerges from how people perceive it and the experience it creates for them.
Imagine an environment in which managers frequently use an authoritarian style and rely on pressure. In that setting, an invitation to a company team-building event at the weekend may be interpreted as yet another demand. Employees may see it as an obligation or as evidence that the company does not care about them because it expects them to spend their personal time at a corporate event. Now imagine the same invitation in an environment where managers consistently encourage teamwork and cooperation, where the atmosphere is positive and enjoyable, and where people experience freedom and respect. The event is far more likely to be understood as “another thing the company is doing for its people” and as further proof that “we do not only work together—we are friends and enjoy spending time together.”
Events that affect people matter to them. They interpret those events through their experience and attach meaning according to how the events make them feel. In this way, a fact or event becomes a symbol.
During the first months of the COVID-19 crisis, for example, one of our clients faced a sharp fall in revenue. The company decided to reduce everyone’s pay—with the largest percentage reduction applied to management—but not to lay anyone off, so every employee kept their job. People interpreted the decision as an act of care, and it became a powerful symbol that the company valued them and wanted them to stay.
How can we create and use symbols to influence culture?
There is no formula or fixed set of rules for something as unpredictable as the meaning people will attach to an event. Our experience nevertheless suggests several useful principles:
Awareness
Everyone in a leadership position creates symbols constantly. The problem is that managers often:
- do not realize that people attach specific meaning to their decisions, statements, and behavior and draw conclusions from them
- do not understand precisely what meaning people assign to those actions
Managers can gain valuable guidance by learning which events matter to people, how those events are perceived, and what meaning employees give them. Conversations at the end of a probationary period, employee feedback during performance-review discussions, and retrospectives on completed goals and projects can all provide useful information. The language people use, internal jokes, criticism, and expressions of dissatisfaction can also offer managers rich insight.
Authenticity
Authenticity is an essential element of leadership behavior. When managers act consistently with what they think, feel, and say, they build trust and strengthen their emotional impact on the team. Authenticity also makes it more likely that employees will interpret an event in a way that matches the manager’s intentions and motives.
In one client company we worked with several years ago, the three executive directors had no dedicated offices. Instead, they worked in different teams’ spaces and rotated periodically. This was a powerful symbol of accessibility and low hierarchy because the three leaders genuinely behaved that way in daily life, and the arrangement fully reflected their philosophy and understanding of relationships with people.
Explanation
When meaning is not communicated, people create their own. Managers therefore need to explain the intended meaning of symbols, because employees will not always interpret decisions, events, and objects in the way leaders expect.
If the company creates a program to recognize and reward employees on their work anniversaries, it should also explain why the program exists and what it is intended to express. Otherwise, it may be misinterpreted or regarded as meaningless.
For example, one organization invested considerable effort in preserving employees’ ability to use company cars for personal purposes when Bulgaria’s well-known “weekend tax” was introduced, while still complying with strict legal requirements. The people affected focused more on the new inconveniences than on the fact that, unlike employees at many competing companies, they could still use the cars privately to a significant extent.
Consistency
First, symbols must reflect the organization’s values and culture. Otherwise, people become confused and the culture weakens.
A company that wants a results-oriented culture cannot introduce a performance-management process with no consequences for either compensation or career development.
A company that wants managers to be seen as accessible cannot place every director on a restricted floor while all other employees work together in an open space elsewhere.
Second, different symbols need to communicate consistent messages. If a performance-management process is called a “development discussion,” the name is not enough. Managers must conduct the conversation in a way that genuinely feels developmental, and real development activities must follow. Otherwise, employees experience a gap between what was promised and what actually happened. That gap may become the strongest symbol of all—and people may attach a meaning to it that the organization did not intend.
Third, business realities sometimes require imperfect or compromise decisions. Even then, one element should remain non-negotiable: the values the organization wants to embody. That is the essence of values—they are the principles we would not abandon, whatever the circumstances.
When discussing culture, we often encounter companies copying practices and symbols from other organizations in the hope of producing the same result. Yet every company is a unique system of values, people, business model, operating environment, and other factors.
Google’s office slides and amenities reinforce values such as technological innovation and engagement because they operate as part of a complete organizational system: the personalities of founders Page and Brin, the company’s vision and strategy, its other systems and processes, and the broader context of Silicon Valley. A remarkable office alone will not create Google’s culture of commitment and creativity.
Adopting the maxim “people over process,” or asking everyone to find their own way to contribute, will not by itself produce Netflix’s high level of personal accountability or its exceptional teams.
Just as every culture is unique, and every company’s managers are unique individuals, the symbols used to strengthen culture must also be distinctive—carrying the particular spirit and meaning of those people in that organization.
