It’s ok if you are just doing your job

Two ideas I’ve been reflecting on:

Some people just want to do their job.

They don’t want to wrestle with big questions about strategy. They find great fulfilment in doing what their everyday job requires, and they will get excited about little everyday events.

It’s not a weakness. The job market needs hundreds of thousands of people who are just able to deliver, without investing most of their time in meetings about abstract ideas. Professionals with a passion for their everyday work can become problematic only when they can’t connect their everyday job with the purpose of the company – and they get stuck in the technicalities of their practice.

You need trauma to change the culture of a company.

It needs to affect dramatically job descriptions, business priorities, sometimes even salaries. You can’t change culture just by talking about “how important” a few values are.

It’s like a demonstration: many people will stand in the street and shout the same message, a message they firmly believe in; those who didn’t join the demonstration will keep ignoring that message. It’s exactly the same with artificial company culture changes: either you believed in those values in the first place, or you will just keep walking by and ignore the pretty posters.

If your team is a multicultural team, forcing a shared working culture might even become a new trigger for internal conflict.