Culture: It matters more than ever

0:00 hi my name is Chris Murchison and I am a 0:03 affiliate of the Center for positive 0:06 organizations and a visiting leader for 0:09 the group there and I've been working 0:12 with CBO for about six years 0:14 and come to campus regularly to meet 0:17 with students and to talk about various 0:19 aspects of organization culture and the 0:22 kind of practices that really support an 0:24 organization thriving I'm also a 0:26 consultant as I've had the opportunity 0:28 to work with a huge variety of 0:30 organizations for-profit nonprofit and 0:34 philanthropic and see their 0:36 organizations in practice and how they 0:39 they demonstrate their values the things 0:42 that they struggle with the things that 0:43 they do well it's given me such 0:45 interesting perspective on on culture 0:48 and kind of what seems to work to 0:50 support positive culture and what are 0:52 the things that get in the way of 0:53 culture as well those kind of tensions 0:55 and negative things that can actually 0:57 bring an organization down as well so 1:01 through all of that I've come to see 1:03 that that organization culture is a very 1:06 important part of any organization and 1:08 when you see a positive culture and 1:11 action it's incredible the results that 1:15 you see are exciting you see people 1:17 joyful happy engaged collaborating well 1:23 you just see so many positive outcomes 1:25 of a positive culture that just lead you 1:29 easily to believe that that working to 1:32 create practices that generate those 1:34 kinds of outcomes must be important and 1:37 in fact it is I think those kinds of 1:40 practices are even more important out in 1:44 the face of the coronavirus and so in my 1:46 work I'm seeing as example some things 1:49 that I think are interesting 1:51 opportunities to put positive practices 1:54 into action so I'm a part of a number of 1:58 virtual teams right now as I'm sure all 2:00 of you are suddenly and so we all have 2:03 this opportunity to lead into a 2:06 different way of working with each other 2:08 and and I think that in another self 2:12 creates an interesting 2:13 you need to think about what does it 2:15 mean to to connect with your colleagues 2:17 under these new conditions how do you 2:20 really pay attention to that and focus 2:22 on that and create a positive 2:24 environment to collaborate well 2:26 virtually how do you maintain connection 2:28 with colleagues virtually how do you do 2:30 that well so that you know so it's not 2:32 just a surface level connection but 2:34 really a deep connection that feels as 2:36 if it could be matched with what you 2:40 might have in person with somebody 2:42 muscles as you are are as well 2:45 experiencing the social distancing 2:47 phenomenon and so as I walk around my 2:50 neighborhood I actually find it 2:51 interesting that there can sometimes 2:54 feel this this threat response as you 2:57 pass someone at a distance it's as if 3:00 people don't want to approach you and in 3:03 that not approaching it's really easy to 3:05 feel if you're a threat to the other 3:08 person or that you find the other person 3:10 threatening and in that kind of 3:11 situation it just doesn't feel very 3:14 positive it feels like you're pulling 3:17 away from the other person emotionally 3:19 when in fact actually coming together 3:21 and more emotionally is what we might 3:24 all need right now to support each other 3:26 and to feel a part of the same community 3:28 and so again thinking about social 3:32 distancing and the impact of that on us 3:34 as human beings but also as employee 3:36 feels really important so how do we 3:38 maintain connection in the face of 3:40 something like social distancing it's 3:42 the kind of question that I think a 3:44 positive organization psychology puts 3:46 right in front of us