Culture Musings: Acclimatization Needed

The first part of the series can be found here.

When people join us from other organizations, they wonder why /what the focus on culture is all about — “why are you still trying to sell the company to me after I’ve joined?”. So the discussions on culture need to be contextualized rather than simply walked through.

Since it typically runs as a powerpoint free discussion, there’s room for new perspectives to emerge based on the people joining, their experiences and even the time of day!

The conversations in the last round brought out a new analogy to better explain why people who join OrangeScape (or any company worth its salt) need to invest time to understand the culture and not just the job description / role.

We spoke of culture as the atmosphere that we operate in — so if one were to imagine being transported to Mars, he/she first has to figure out how to breathe in the new atmosphere before they can do anything else. Simple tasks become impossible not because the person suddenly loses the skills, but because the application of the skills in a different environment first requires explicit adjustment — and this environmental adjustment aka culture shift is not simply a “nice to have” but rather a “must have”.

This analogy while not perfect, brought greater clarity and increased stickiness to the earlier question. The insight was simple — we at OrangeScape are building a very specific environment and it is not habitable for anyone and everyone (nor is it meant to be), thriving here requires conscious adjustment that goes beyond skills and that is why we deliberate on culture the day folks join us!