Culture Rules! Open Culture

A friend and I were strolling one holiday evening through a Park Street neighborhood, looking for a place to dine. My friend suggested Muglai cuisine.

I took notice of the parking attendant’s smile and greeting when he said “chust Urdu.” The doorkeeper opened the door and mumbled something in Urdu that sounded like a nice greeting, too. As we were about to take a seat, a couple of helpers arrive from nowhere and help us settle down.

The waitress arrives nicely dressed up and proceeds to explain the cuisines, advising us on our menu selections. As the Sultan’s advisor left with the order, a musician duo approached us and asked us if we would like to listen to a short version of Darbari Kanada Thumri while we wait for our dinner. The food was out of this world and I must admit that I just loved the experience. A manager approached us as we were waiting for our bill and chatted on the service and the cooking in general and explained that his restaurant is always striving to find new ways of customer satisfaction.

Sound familiar? I am sure all of us must have faced similar experiences when someone elevates customer satisfaction to a new level. What does it take to make it happen? Customer satisfaction is as simple as doing things for customers in a way that satisfies his needs and exceeds his expectations.

As the all-mush-Sultan’s Darbari attendant was opening the door for us, I read something on the wall. It said: “We care for our customer and we do it by practice!”

The word “practice” hit me. Something that we believe in and do by practice over and over again becomes something deeply rooted in us. Not only does it become a habit, but it also becomes our way of doing things. It becomes so ingrained and so obvious one day that even an outsider can see it. This “it” is what I call the “culture.”

Every organization has a life of its own. Over the years, it becomes like a living organism. It can be personified in the way it communicates and behaves. It is culture that makes an organization stand out. Its culture makes the difference in its becoming a good organization or a great organization.

If you look at IBM’s website, there is a printed “Culture statement:”

IBM has a performancebased culture that talented people find very attractive. Employees share a real sense of community. We work in a culture that prizes intelligence and innovation. You will find that you really are working with some of the brightest and the best people around in a company that has complete trust in you and your capabilities.

I was in IBM for three years from 1998 to 2001 and experienced a lot of the above mentioned cultural traits along with other hidden traits, which only an employee would know. The traits differ slightly from city to city and country to country. I traveled to various offices of IBM, my base offices in Bangalore and others in Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi. I also noticed zonal cultural variations when I closely interacted with IBM-ers of Australia, Singapore, Thailand, the U.S. and Great Britain.

Something that struck me in most of the conversations, particularly with senior IBM pros, is that they are all very business-like. Something that I termed as extremely lifeless during my early days in IBM, particularly as I was coming from a very vibrant, young and lively atmosphere of Tata Consultancy Services. I used to find the IBM characteristics almost robotic.

But the success of a giant depends on a mature culture — and these traits were even visible in the processes of IBM. In my first week of joining IBM as a Business Partner program manager, I was sitting at the round table of Services strategy discussions, accompanying my first boss in IBM, as her sidekick, and other department heads with The IBM India president. The IBM president was one of the big shots in the IT industry.

Desperate to create an impression in my first meeting, I had an extremely valid point to make. I looked at the president and started enthusiastically with “Sir, I think … ” a few words and he nodded kindly at me, mentioned his first name and looked at my boss. She was quick to explain that I had just joined and told me later that in IBM everyone is called by their first name.

This points to an open culture, which is partially true in IBM with standard red tape arrangements as in any other giant organization. Open culture is something which lot of companies preach and practice — but in IBM, as I found out through my experiences, it also talks about a western concept of “human value” — that whether you are young or old, experienced or not, a GM or a trainee -- you are respected as a human being first and everyone is equal in that respect.

A very simple point -- so simple that we almost overlook it.