Have you ever met someone--at a party, a meeting, an interview--and in an instant knew you connected? I have. It happens all the time but it's hard to explain or quantify.

Whether you're in the dating game or business--or both--theres no mistaking when personalities click.

When evaluating your current staff or hiring new talent, do you rely on these feelings--your ability to "read" people? Im not talking about evaluating technical skills and experience. But is he or she a great personality match for your organization? Is there, or will there be a good cultural fit?

If you want to create and hold on to balanced, high performing teams, making the personality-culture match is essential.

EXPLORING YOUR WORKPLACE PERSONALITY.

What Is Organizational Culture?

Organizational culture has been described as the personality of an organization, or simply as "how things are done around here." Its what guides how your employees think, act, and feel in the workplace.

What Is Corporate Culture?

Corporate culture is a broad term used to define the unique personality or character of a particular company or organization, and includes such elements as core values and beliefs, corporate ethics, and rules of behavior.

Culture is the environment that surrounds you at work all of the time. Culture is a powerful element that shapes your work enjoyment, your work relationships, and your work processes. But, culture is something that you cannot actually see, except through its physical manifestations in your work place.

Culture Is Like Personality.

In a person, the personality is made up of the values, beliefs, underlying assumptions, interests, experiences, upbringing, and habits that form that persons behavior. Culture is made up of the values, beliefs, underlying assumptions, attitudes, and behaviors shared by a group of people. Culture is the behavior that results when a group arrives at a set of--generally unspoken and unwritten--rules for working together. An organizations culture is made up of all of the life experiences each employee brings to the organization.

Culture--generally created unconsciously--is especially influenced by the organizations founder, executives, and other managerial staff because of their roles in decision-making and strategic direction.

Culture is represented in a groups:

- Language

- Decision-making

- Symbols

- Stories and legends

- Daily work practices

Something as simple as the objects chosen to grace a desk tell you a lot about how employees view and participate in your organizations culture. Your bulletin board content, the company newsletter, the interaction of employees in meetings, and the way in which people collaborate, speak volumes about your organizational culture.

Central Concepts About Culture

Professors Ken Thompson (DePaul University) and Fred Luthans (University of Nebraska) highlight the following seven characteristics of culture.

1. Culture = Behavior. Culture is a word used to describe the behaviors that represent the general operating norms in your environment. Culture is not usually defined as good or bad, although aspects of your culture likely support your progress and success and other aspects impede your progress.

A norm of accountability will help make your organization successful. A norm of spectacular customer service will sell your products and engage your employees. Tolerating poor performance or exhibiting a lack of discipline to maintain established processes and systems will impede your success.

2. Culture Is Learned. People learn to perform certain behaviors through either the rewards or negative consequences that follow their behavior. When a behavior is rewarded, it is repeated and the association eventually becomes part of the culture. A simple thank you from an executive for work performed in a particular manner, molds the culture.

3. Culture Is Learned Through Interaction. Associates learn culture by interacting with other associates. Most behaviors and rewards in organizations involve other employees. An applicant experiences a sense of your culture, and his or her fit within your culture, during the interview process. Initial opinions of your culture can be formed as early as the first phone call from the hiring executive or representative from human resources.

4. Sub-cultures Form Through Rewards. Employees have many different wants and needs. Sometimes workers value rewards that are not associated with the behaviors desired by managers for the overall company. This is often how sub-cultures are formed, as people get social rewards from co-workers or have their most important needs met in their departments or project teams.

5. People Shape The Culture. Personalities and experiences of staffers create the culture of an organization. For example, if most of the people in your organization are very outgoing, the culture is likely to be open and sociable. If many artifacts depicting the companys history and values are in evidence throughout the company, people value their history and culture. If doors are open, and few closed-door meetings are held, the culture is unguarded. If negativity about supervision and the company is widespread and complained about by employees, a culture of negativity, that is difficult to overcome, will take hold.

6. Culture Is Negotiated. One person cannot create a culture alone. Employees must try to change the direction, the work environment, the way work is performed, or the manner in which decisions are made within the general norms of the workplace.

Culture change is a process of give and take by all members of an organization. Formalizing strategic direction, systems development, and establishing measurements must be owned by the group responsible for them. Otherwise, your people will not own them.

7. Culture Is Difficult To Change. Culture change requires people to change their behaviors. It is often difficult for people to unlearn their old way of doing things, and to start performing the new behaviors consistently. Persistence, discipline, employee involvement, kindness and understanding, organization development work, and training can assist you to change a culture.

More Characteristics Of Culture

It is often interpreted differently by diverse employees. Other events in peoples lives affect how they act and interact at work too. Although an organization has a common culture, each person may see that culture from a different perspective. Whats more, your employees individual work experiences, departments, and teams may view the culture differently.

Your culture may be strong or weak. When your work culture is strong, most people in the group agree on the culture. When your work culture is weak, people do not agree on the culture. Sometimes a weak organizational culture can be the result of many subcultures, or the shared values, assumptions, and behaviors of a subset of the organization.

For example, the culture of your company as a whole might be weak and very difficult to characterize because there are so many sub-cultures. Each department or work cell may have its own culture. Within departments, the staff and managers may each have their own culture.

Ideally, organizational culture supports a positive, productive, environment. Happy employees are not necessarily productive employees. Productive employees are not necessarily happy employees. It is important to find aspects of the culture that will nurture, support, and help grow each of these qualities for your team.

Now that you can better visualize your organizational culture, you may want to explore additional aspects of organizational culture and cultural change. It could mean greater success and profitability for your organization.

Les Gore is founder and managing partner of Executive Search International, a Boston-based, nationally recognized search firm and a 23-year vetern of the "recruiting wars."