🤝 What is organizational culture?

Theory

Have you considered that there is a difference between nature and culture? Natural landscapes are forests and mountains as nature has created them, while cultural landscapes are the result of human and animal intervention.

In other words, nature is fairly random, while culture is planned.

When it comes to us humans, it's almost the same way: I may be born with some characteristics that are part of my personality. Heredity and biology, if you will. But when I decide for myself whether I want to act on that trait, it's an awareness of what nature has given me. You may be a modest person by nature, but when it's required, for example in a work context, can you still contribute to a social lunch with new partners?

How does this work in an organizational context? Well, get this:

When you decide on a bylaw, for example, that you're for diversity, that's all well and good. But it's only when you put this theory into practice that it becomes part of your organization's culture. When you actively seek to recruit broadly, people with different backgrounds, sexual orientations, ages, study choices and functional levels, that's when you create a culture of diversity.

🎬 Specialist in culture and organisational development, Unni Hafskjold Mildon explains culture:

Practice

The board of Linjeforeningen Zeta is a fun bunch. Everyone loves to party and have fun, and the legendary summer parties are one of the reasons why so many party-loving students want to join the board. You could say that Zeta has a well-known party culture.

But now leader Kim is a little bored. They've gone into deficit, and in order to get next year's budget approved, they MUST have a better financial plan. Vinnie, an economics student, is known for leading the student community from negative to positive numbers. He has no student positions this year, and Kim is trying hard to recruit him to Zeta. But Vinnie doesn't want to.

"I can't hang out with a bunch of frivolous students who only care about getting drunk," is his response.

Kim thinks about it. When did it become the drunken parties that Zeta is best known for? Did someone want it that way, or has it just become that way?

He takes his thoughts to the board. "Did you know that we have a reputation for being frivolous party animals? And that this prevents serious people from applying for positions with us?" he asks.

The discussion that follows can be called an awareness-raising exercise. Examples of events from Zeta's long history show that yes, most of the activities involve serving alcohol.

The deputy chairman of the board makes a suggestion that everyone agrees with:

"To be taken more seriously, and include more types of volunteers, we should try to have at least half of the events we organize without intoxication, or in some way make it clear that it is perfectly ok to come without drinking! We should vary our offerings so that both volunteers and members have choices. We must try to change what has unconsciously become a party culture to a more varied social culture".

Kim sends the minutes from the board meeting to Vinnie. Maybe he will consider joining NOW?

Reflection tasks:

1. Ask four different people about their impressions of their organization. Ask a new student, a student who has been on campus for a while, one from the teaching staff, and one from other staff. What do they know about your association? What have they learned about what you do, what activities are you associated with?

2. Google it! If you Google your association, what's the first thing that comes up? How would an outsider view the search results?

3. Think through what you have been told. Does the impression you have created match what you want to appear as?

4. If not, what can/should be changed? And how?

Awareness is a difficult exercise. It requires an ability to see yourself from the outside that few of us possess. To help you along the way, we have prepared some evaluation forms that you can use as a starting point when you have completed activities.

Evaluation:

• What is evaluation?

• What is the goal of evaluation?

• How to evaluate?

• Evaluation forms for different activities (stand, quiz, seminar)

🎬 Video: Culture in Liloh, line association for lecturers and history students at USN campus Vestfold

👉 The line association Liloh on Facebook.

🌈 What is diversity culture?

Theory

Diversity is about differences. Do you think difference has a slightly negative connotation? But you shouldn't be afraid of diversity. Diversity can help you become a more resilient and innovative organization because diversity helps you see things from multiple perspectives!

We perceive problems and solutions differently, and that can be a great strength. The differences between us give us different perspectives. And if your organization facilitates these different perspectives, you will have a wider range of skills and experiences (Kaufmann & Kaufmann, 2019). In this way, diversity increases the overall competence of the organization.

Having a diverse organization requires that you have a culture where differences are positive and diversity is made visible. To achieve this, it is important to have a management team that is aware of this responsibility and that actively works to consider diversity in recruitment, planning and implementation of events.

Promoting diversity requires persistence and focus, and recruitment processes must be oriented towards diversity among applicants. Embracing diversity makes good business sense (Bolman and Deal 2009, p. 188); the opposite may result in fewer people wanting to participate in your activities.

🎬 Film: Emma talks about SDSN's work for the social community in Porsgrunn

Film engelsk mangfold/Emma

Example

The line association Vendo, for the Marketing Management program, is struggling to get students to attend their events. Chairman Remi and deputy chairman Chris are left talking after a lecture on segmentation and target group selection.

"Is there something wrong with our target group awareness? We should know this stuff, it's our field of expertise!" Remi sighs in exasperation.

"Last bowling night had an all-time low participation with just the two of us. I don't want to do that again, ass." Chris nods. "You're all right, but the whole point of Vendo is to create a slightly larger professional community!"

"Exactly. What are we doing wrong?"

"I have no idea. But let's take a quick survey here."

They look around. Their fellow students are packing up their things. Some are checking their watches as they hurry to put on their jackets; they might have to catch the bus. Some are lounging around leisurely in soft pajama pants; they probably live in the student residence right next to the university. There is variation in gender, clothing style, hairstyle... PCs, textbooks and notebooks are packed in everything from Kiwi shopping bags, Douchebags and Kånken. On their heads are everything from worn knitted hats, caps, hijabs and hair bows, and a nascent moon peeks out from the hook. There is a buzz of voices of all ages, languages and sociolects.

"Wow," Chris exclaims. "It's a pretty diverse bunch here!"

"You're damn right it is..." Remi thinks about it. He clicks on Vendo's insta.

"Do our association and our activities reflect the diversity we see around us now?"

Reflection

• How is the board put together?

• Who actively participates at meetings/who speaks up the most?

• Who volunteers their time?

• What kind of events do you offer? Who attends these?

• Who would you say is your target group?

🪧 Posters

Look through the latest posters you've created to promote events. What do they look like?

🎯 GOAL: Vary the illustrative images you have in your posters. Make sure that all human types, body shapes, functional forms, etc. are represented at regular intervals.

Wording

1. Consider whether your choice of words allows for diversity. Language is important!

2. Have you remembered to translate into English? It's easy to forget!

3. Get someone else to read your text. Does the message come across as you intended?

Type of event

• Drugs vs. non-drugs

• Free vs. co-payment

• Large group vs. small group

• Physical activity vs. sitting still

Time of day

When do you usually arrange activities? At what times do most people come? Are the same people coming at all times?

🎯 GOAL: Offer varied activities that allow both local residents and commuters to attend.

Operation

Have you heard of Kroa in Bø? The Kroa model is an example to follow! They are run by a central board, which organizes the big events. But! There are many subgroups! There's a band committee, a tour group, creative café, games group, quiz, movie club and much more. So everyone can find something they're interested in. This is diversity culture in practice!

👔 Leadership culture

Theory: Active listening - how is it useful in leadership?

"Yes, I practise active listening, you're thinking. Or wait, what does that actually mean, you might continue? I listen when other people talk to me. I listen when someone asks me something. AND I do it actively, by asking questions back and giving lots of good advice. Yep, I'm a good active listener".

Easy to recognize yourself in that? I think we all think it's "innate" to listen actively in that way. But, hang on - it's not that simple! Active listening is about something else that is much more important. The focus should simply be elsewhere. When you listen actively, the most important ingredients are that you have time and that you are quiet. What?

Yep, active listening is actually defined like this: Active listening is the inner activity that happens when we listen to others, and can be both verbal and non-verbal.

Giving advice is not that important, and it can actually be kind of cool to think about. You don't have to have the solution when someone comes to you with something on their mind, but the most important components to keep in mind can be found in these headlines from the World Mental Health Day:

1. Stay focused - put away anything that might distract

2. Show that you're listening - use body language, glances and nods

3. Avoid interrupting - give time and space to the speaker

4. Repeat what the other person is saying - use your own words and be open to clarification

5. Ask follow-up questions - be curious and follow up with open questions

6. Pay attention - what do you read in terms of body language, tone of voice and mood?

7. Summarise together - show that you've listened and understood the gist of what's been said

But why is it so important? Active listening, that is? The simple answer is to create security and good relationships.

Verdensdagen.no goes on to say that the purpose is "to increase understanding between the speaker and the listener, through small acts of communication to show interest and understanding of the speaker". No one expects you to be an expert on this, and the vast majority of us probably aren't. However, we can take some of these bubbles with us, reflect on their significance and see what happens to our relationships if we spend some time actively listening. This will in turn affect the culture of the organization by making members feel more understood and seen. We promise that this will benefit operations in general!

Theory: open vs. closed questions

Have you noticed that there is a difference between how fully you answer the question: "Are you okay?" and the question "How are you?"?

"Are you okay?" often leads to a "Yay" (because honestly, who says no? It takes a LOT, I think!) But the question "How are you?" often gets more of a response. Why is that? Well, the first question is a so-called closed question, the second an open question. The difference lies precisely in the answer options.

Closed questions

Closed questions are, by definition, questions that have very limited answer options. They are tricky to use when you need to obtain specific information ("What time is it?" "Quarter to six".) But when you want to create a relationship, evaluate a situation or really show that you care, closed questions are completely useless. Then you need to use open questions.

Open questions

Open questions often start with the words what, how or why, and are meant to give your conversation partner the freedom to shape their answers. You can't simply answer yes or no to questions like "What happened?" or "How did you experience it?". As leaders of NGOs, you can benefit from knowing this difference. Closed questions work well, for example, when assigning tasks ("Who will check the ID? Who will control the music?") But when the event is over and you need to evaluate how it went, open questions are preferable ("What went well? What should we change for next time?").

To be an active listener, a good leader or supporter, you should practice asking good, open questions. Yes, the conversations are often longer, but you'll get so much more out of both facts and feelings!

🎬 Video: Meeting culture is also culture

Reflection task: How to become a good listener?

• Alone: Look carefully at each of the items in the bulleted list below.

• In pairs: Find concrete examples of each of the sentences. For example: how to stay focused? What elements can distract? What is good body language? What is an open question?

• In pairs: Choose one topic. One of you listens and the other talks. After five minutes, take out the list (or the poster from the PDF) and go through the points in the list. Which did you master, which ones were challenging, and why?

1. Stay focused - put away anything that might distract

2. Show that you're listening - use body language, glances and nods

3. Avoid interrupting - give time and space to the speaker

4. Repeat what the other person is saying - use your own words and be open to clarification

5. Ask follow-up questions - be curious and follow up with open questions

6. Pay attention - what do you read in terms of body language, tone of voice and mood?

7. Summarise together - show that you've listened and understood the gist of what's been said

📥 Become an active listener. Download PDF >

Thoughts about the leader

Being a boss is a vulnerable position! Glory be to you who have taken on this assignment, you are important! There's no denying that the manager gets both the praise and, not least, the abuse. That's why it's important to have a good and clear leader.

Start by asking the board the following questions:

• What experience have you had with leaders in the past?

• What is a good leader for you?

• What is a not-so-good leader?

• How do you want your manager to give you feedback?

• How do you want the leader to address any conflicts?

🏅 Congratulations! You've completed the course on culture in student organisations. Roll up your sleeves and put your new knowledge into practice! We're rooting for you 🙌