Categories
Book inspiration Leadership and HR

What is an Organisational Culture Strategist, and what do they do

Whenever I am asked about what attracts me the most and what I enjoy doing the most in the P&C field, and I respond that it is with organizational culture strategy, I can see the question mark forming in the person’s mind.

Hmm, tell me more

Unfortunately, there is no formal and popular designation for this role – culture strategist – but I see how much it would benefit if we could formally create this role within the P&C area, identifying and developing individuals who truly connect with the challenges of this position.

This role is particularly important in times of transition: mergers between companies, new products, AI transition, new market positioning, or simply because the company has decided that a culture change is interesting for the business.

But after all, what would an organizational culture strategist be?

Starting from the beginning, what is organizational culture?

There are several significant elements involved in organizational culture; according to Edgar Schein (1985), there are three levels of organizational culture: artefacts, shared values, and basic assumptions. Each of them plays a different role:

Artefacts: These are the most visible and tangible elements of culture, including physical architecture, rituals, symbols, language, and attire. For example, formal company policies, office layout, or even celebration rituals. This is the most superficial element, easy to change, and has little to do with the real CORE of the culture.

Shared Values: In addition to visible artefacts, Schein highlights shared values, representing the beliefs and norms considered important by organization members. These influence behaviour and decisions, noticeable in the company’s priorities, such as emphasis on innovation, quality, or collaboration. For instance, in a company that strongly values “Social Responsibility,” employees regularly participate in local volunteer initiatives, fostering an environment where community engagement is a common practice. This culture is reflected in daily actions, such as organizing charitable events and integrating ethical values into business decisions, demonstrating the company’s commitment to social responsibility (Schein, 1985).

Basic Assumptions: This deeper level encompasses underlying and unconscious assumptions that guide the thinking and actions of organization members. These assumptions are often so internalized that people may not even be aware of them. Examples include beliefs about the nature of work, the relationship with authority, or the vision of success. In an organization where the basic assumption is “Mutual Trust,” team members operate with the fundamental assumption that everyone shares a commitment to integrity and collaboration. This is reflected in open communications, delegation of responsibilities, and a willingness to take calculated risks, as everyone operates from the underlying belief that colleagues will act ethically and in alignment with the company’s goals (Schein, 1985).

Therefore, an organizational culture strategist works on managing these elements of culture:

  1. Artefacts:
    • Evaluates and manages the sensory elements of the organization, such as office architecture, language used in internal communications, rituals, and symbols present, as well as Policies and Procedures. Do these artefacts align with the culture we want to adopt?
  2. Shared Values:
    • Communication and Feedback: Evaluates and manages how the company’s values are communicated and reinforced, whether through meetings, training, or feedback. The mode here is particularly important because it reveals many non-obvious values of an organization. In addition to communication, systems, and parameters of Rewards and Recognition are great signals and indicators of how the deeper values of culture are multiplied.
  3. Basic Assumptions:
    • Observation of Behaviour: Analyses the daily behaviour of organization members to identify patterns that reveal underlying assumptions, such as openness to innovation, trust in teams, etc. How are problems solved? How is decision-making in non-obvious situations? – especially when there is no standard and preconceived answer.

A well-designed organizational culture strategy encompasses every point where the employee interacts. Therefore, it is essential to map the employee journey and how we can reflect the values we want at every touchpoint. From the initial approach in a recruitment and selection process to the moment of departure. All these stages are opportunities to reinforce and multiply the culture we would like to adopt.

A culture strategist goes through all areas, revisiting processes, routines, and approaches. They also train people and monitor progress. It is not a quick process because it involves behaviour change and the creation of new shared values, taking time, mostly years. But it is a manageable process, subject to intervention when done with intentionality, strategy, and a systemic vision.

Categories
AI Employability Open Diary

Protean Career A Bibliographic Review

Since the beginning, my career has been oriented towards the field of people and culture. When I started my psychology degree and got my first internship in HR (2010), I was fascinated by the universe that opened up, blending business, marketing, and technology with human behaviour. But it was only a few years ago, during my master’s (2019), that I began to take an interest in career management.

The field of Human Resources has similarities with career management, to the extent that a quite natural move for HR professionals, after years of dedication to HR, is to transition to the field of career management. Both deal with the work relationship between individuals and companies, but each has a specific interest and perspective:

  • The HR management perspective works for a company. The goal is to get employees to deliver the maximum value to a corporation. To achieve this, they recruit the best employees, train their skills, and motivate them to stay and produce more.
  • The career management perspective works for the employees/professionals. The goal is to make companies/clients see the maximum value in them, developing the employability and brand of the individual.

During my master’s, I came across a human resources management author who introduced the term “Protean Career” for the first time. According to Hall (1976), there is a tendency in people to use their own success criteria, usually focusing on self-realization and happiness, as opposed to the values emphasized in the traditional career era where the focus was on external conditions such as salary, hierarchical level, and status. From this perspective, a career is seen as a sequence of lifelong work experiences that enable personal satisfaction and psychological success.

With this career view, Hall (1976) developed the concept of the Protean Career, in analogy to the mythological figure Proteus, who has the ability to change shape at will. People start to value the freedom to develop and find challenges not only in a wide variety of companies but also in all spheres of human experience. The shift toward personal fulfilment is its core value.

In this perspective, a career should be reinvented from time to time and becomes directed by individuals rather than organizations.

The Protean Career requires organizations to have a humanized and flexible management, considering the individual needs and values of each professional. From the professionals’ perspective, it should be seen as one where the individual is responsible for constant improvement, knowledge, self-awareness, as well as the ability to adapt to changes due to personal needs or environmental circumstances.

The Protean Career is shaped by the individual’s own needs, goals, and values, not by organizational structures or received ideas from a company’s professional development programs.

In this historical moment where AI manages a significant portion of operational and repetitive tasks, the Protean Career model becomes even more advantageous. Lifelong learning remains paramount, emphasizing the importance of self-directed and relational learning in facing professional challenges. The essence lies in cultivating a diverse repertoire, where the ability to pose insightful questions outweighs the mere possession of answers, given that AI is readily available to provide them. In the Protean Career, the focus shifts from owning knowledge to mastering the art of questioning, enabling continuous adaptation and a proactive approach to change.

Success factors have changed from:

know-how ———-> learn-how

job security ———> employability

work self ———> whole self

  • Work is an important part of your personal identity. For example, you can reinvent yourself and reshape your work and career around family priorities.
  • The main goal is always a psychological success: feeling well is a priority. Being well, we solve the rest.

It’s worth arguing, however, that although the Protean Career approach emphasizes that individuals should be responsible for their career development and that people start to seek and value psychological success, not all workers have the necessary requirements to assume a career with these characteristics, as they feel the need for external support (Hall, 2002).

With this perspective and inspiration, I have been developing my own career self-management model based on three pillars:

  • Mental health at work and emotional intelligence.
  • Productivity: organization, execution, and planning.
  • Employability.

The objective is to provide a holistic career self-management system encompassing methodologies, habits, and tools. I’ve been offering this solution for approximately 3 years through weekly meetings, with the process spanning around 1 year for each professional.

This is a dynamic system continually refined through my ongoing learning and experiences. You can explore the framework here.

References:

Enache, M. , Sallan, J. M. , Simo, P. , & Fernandez, V. (2011). Examining the impact of protean and boundaryless career attitudes upon subjective career success. Journal of Management & Organization, 17(4),459-473.

Gerber, M, Wittekind, A, Grote, G, Conway, N. , & Guest, D (2009). Generalizability of career orientations: A comparative study in Switzerland and Great Britain. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 82(4),779-801.

Hall, D. T. (1976). Careers in Organizations. California: Goodyear Pub, Pacific Palisades.

Hall, D. T. , & Mirvis, P. H. (1995). The New Career Contract – Developing The Whole Person At Midlife And Beyond. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 47(3),269-289.

Hall, D. T. , & Mirvis, P. H. (1996). Long live the career. In The career is dead – Long live the career; 1-12, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.

Hall, D. T. , & Moss, J. E. (1998). The new Protean career contract: Helping organizations and employees adapt. Organizational Dynamics, 26(3),22-37.

Hall, D. T. (2002). Careers in and out organizations. London: Sage Publications.

Hall, D. T. (2004). The protean career: A quarter-century journey. Vocational Behavior, 65,1-13

Inkson, K. (2006). Protean and boundaryless careers as metaphors. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 69(1),48-63

McDonald P. , Brown K. , & Bradley, L. (2005). Have traditional career paths given way to protean ones? Evidence from senior managers in the Australian public sector. Career Development International, 10,109-129.

Categories
AI Employability Leadership and HR

The Future of the Job Market: Some Bets and Obvious Truths

There are few certainties in life, but at least in the professional arena, one thing is for sure: the market is constantly evolving in ways no one can predict.

So, how do you navigate your career in such an uncertain scenario?

The most crucial mantra in this undoubtedly is: “Don’t let companies decide your path for you.” One-third of our day is spent working, and over 40 years of our lives, on average, are dedicated to our careers. It’s a steep price to pay to delegate to a third party, whose interests are vastly different from yours, deciding how your literal life’s time will be spent.

You’re not just selling our skilled labour, human. You’re selling your lifetime that we could better spend in the precious presence of a cat

For those who have been in the market for a little longer, around 10 years, they haven’t escaped unscathed from the idealized notion of a predictable and linear career path. Deep down, many still harbour this expectation, or at least it’s where they find the most familiarity. Today, we understand that the process has become increasingly complex, and the speed of change has forced adaptability to an unprecedented level. Many of the professions we now recruit in HR didn’t exist five years ago, or if they did, the required competencies were entirely different.

Career planning in this context has more to do with adaptability to the terrain than an idealized and predictable plan. You can’t sketch a 5-year career plan if you don’t know the terrain you’re entering.

In addition to adaptability, today’s professional aiming for career acceleration must be concerned with two fronts and act ambidextrously:

  • Delivering the present, what is asked, your current project, procedures, and routine;
  • Pushing a new frontier, expanding. What’s the next skill in my field? Being more provocative and a builder of the future in your area. Finding more efficient ways of execution.

Furthermore, three current movements should be considered when thinking strategically about your career:

  1. Artificial intelligence as part of our daily work. A year ago, no one talked about Chat-GPT, for example, and now it’s involved in all areas within a company. It’s a new must-have, there is no escape.
  2. Consequently, this forces new patterns of consumption and customer expectations. The customer knows more about how much their money is worth. They have the power of comparison. It’s much more challenging to serve a customer today than it was 10 years ago.
  3. Technology shapes new customers who form new ways of managing.

The modern professional is constantly pushing the boundaries, finding new frontiers and seeking cheaper, faster, and more effective ways of execution. Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays a key role in facilitating this. AI is no longer just an IT guy thing, it has become one of the most basic competencies, just like the new Office suite. From HR to logistics, everyone must now understand AI and its potential applications.

So how to combine my professional skills with AI?

Will technology replace humans entirely? No, but it will do more than the average human does. I am excellent at communicating compassionately. AI can’t communicate like me, but does the average human know how to communicate compassionately? No. So, AI excels better than the average human in empathetic communication. But I am secure in this skill.

Does that scare or reassure you?

The possible solution is: don’t be average at everything; find something that makes you above average. Dive deep into it; you’ll be happier, fulfilled, and employed.

AI is good at providing answers, but we must specialize in asking questions. To ask good questions, you need repertoire, curiosity, and openness to the new. Where can I get that? By accessing things beyond the average — reading the unpopular book, following the less talked-about news, taking the less fancy course, and serving the client everyone avoids.

The only safety net is our constant repertoire of knowledge—updating, challenging ourselves, taking charge of our career management, building new frontiers, experimenting, engaging in difficult conversations, tolerating the pain of change, and acknowledging that change is imperative. With these elements, a career plan is less important than being prepared.