What are the best ways to understand your organization's culture as a business architect?
As a business architect, you need to understand the culture of your organization, as it affects how you design and implement solutions, communicate with stakeholders, and align with strategic goals. But how can you gain insights into the complex and often implicit aspects of organizational culture? Here are some tips to help you.
One way to understand your organization's culture is to observe how people behave and interact with each other, both formally and informally. For example, you can pay attention to how decisions are made, how conflicts are resolved, how feedback is given and received, how teams collaborate, and how leaders communicate. These behaviors and interactions can reveal the underlying values, norms, and assumptions that shape the culture.
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T. Tarai Kemp Brown, CPC
Certified C-Suite Coach | Workplace Culture Consultant | Speaker | Your Coach for LIFE!
"Stop, look, and listen" can be a valuable practice in understanding the organization's culture. When you stop, it helps you slow down long enough to gather information, fact find, reflect, and problem solve. Often when there isn't buy-in from other talent it's because someone with decision-making power didn't take time to stop and properly assess the landscape. After you stop, take a look around at all the non-verbal clues in your environment. Watch body language, facial expressions, how close or far apart people sit or stand from each other. These things will tell you far more about the teams than words. Finally, listen! It's critical to buy-in that people feel like they have a voice. Be sure to create space for respectful exchanges.
Another way to understand your organization's culture is to ask questions and listen to the perspectives of different stakeholders, such as customers, employees, managers, partners, and suppliers. You can use various methods, such as interviews, surveys, focus groups, or workshops, to gather information and feedback. You can also use tools, such as cultural maps, diagrams, or models, to visualize and analyze the data. The key is to ask open-ended and probing questions, and listen actively and empathetically, to understand the needs, expectations, challenges, and opportunities of each stakeholder group.
A third way to understand your organization's culture is to participate and experiment with different initiatives, projects, or events that involve or affect the business architecture. For example, you can join a cross-functional team, volunteer for a pilot program, attend a training session, or host a brainstorming session. These activities can help you experience the culture firsthand, learn from others, and test your assumptions and hypotheses. They can also help you identify and leverage the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the culture.
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T. Tarai Kemp Brown, CPC
Certified C-Suite Coach | Workplace Culture Consultant | Speaker | Your Coach for LIFE!
Most people don't like to be told what to do by someone who has no idea what the role entails. Part of getting the lay of the land involves understanding how things work and why certain things are done in a particular way. You may see room for improvement or greater efficiency in one area of the business. The wise thing to do is suggest a trial to test your idea rather than tear down a system. This gives you an opportunity to train, collect data, and get feedback. It may be that your idea doesn't increase productivity like you thought, but it may reduce stress. That's still a win and you've earned the trust of team members! Learn to leverage your wins to introduce more tests, and keep building from there, using backing from allies.
A fourth way to understand your organization's culture is to compare and contrast it with other organizations, industries, or markets that you are familiar with or interested in. For example, you can benchmark your organization's performance, practices, or policies against those of your competitors, peers, or best-in-class examples. You can also explore how other organizations have dealt with similar challenges or opportunities that you face as a business architect. These comparisons and contrasts can help you gain a broader and deeper understanding of your organization's culture, as well as its competitive advantages and disadvantages.
A fifth way to understand your organization's culture is to reflect and adapt your own behavior, style, and approach as a business architect. For example, you can review your past projects, feedback, or outcomes, and identify what worked well and what didn't, and why. You can also seek and apply feedback from others, and learn from your mistakes and successes. You can also experiment with different ways of communicating, collaborating, or influencing others, and see what resonates and what doesn't. These reflections and adaptations can help you improve your skills, credibility, and impact as a business architect.
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T. Tarai Kemp Brown, CPC
Certified C-Suite Coach | Workplace Culture Consultant | Speaker | Your Coach for LIFE!
Being a business architect is no small feat, but if you're willing to get in there and champion a "people first" approach, successful change is a lot easier to achieve. Talent in the workplace know when a person is genuinely interested in improving the overall culture and business model, and they can also tell when the bottom line is the only thing that matters. If you exercise due diligence in looking at how things work in reality versus on paper, it will help you draft the blueprint for a world-class operation where there is enough room for everyone to thrive. Don't forget to stop, look, and listen while you build!
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