All organizations have a culture. That is a system of shared beliefs, assumptions, and values that govern how people behave. Culture is a continuous topic of interest and a focus for many companies. Regardless of how you feel about corporate culture, there are dangers for being too much of an outsider. Having one employee acting as an unhealthy cultural maverick can set the organization back and open it to risk.
Dangers of Being an Unhealthy Cultural Maverick
We all take risks from time to time. Taking a risk by being an unhealthy cultural maverick and going against the company culture can have unfavorable results in these seven ways.
1) Performance and Potential Suffer
Being an unhealthy cultural maverick by going against the culture and values of the organization limits your ability to reach peak performance. It diminishes the opportunity to become a high potential. This happens because elements of your job aren’t being done in alignment with expectations. In order for the organization to meet its objectives, you have to play nice in the sandbox.
2) Everyone is an Unspoken Mentor
Other’s will blindly follow, even someone who is an unhealthy cultural maverick. This creates a domino effect in that more people will not be reaching their potential. People are ambassadors for the organization, everyone interacts as a representative of the organization. Make sure the right culture is spreading because it will spread.
3) Customer Suffers
Having an unhealthy cultural maverick causes the customer experience to fall short of meeting the leadership brand of the organization. This is because they aren’t getting the level of service and intimate relationship the company is striving for. Additionally, clients talk and how they talk about you become the market’s perception of your organization’s leadership brand.
4) Lack of Team Emphasis
If someone on the team is going against the cultural norms, the team isn’t a fully functioning one. It can create friction, confusion, delivering an inconsistent product and exclusion. However, when everyone is there on purpose and not just because it is a job the value of the output is increased, unmatched and a competitive advantage, This is found time and time again at early stage startups.
5) Lack of Company Pride
If someone isn’t on board with the organization’s strategic objectives, mission, and values they will slow the organization down in delivering on those objectives. When everyone is working towards a common goal and objective and are being measured on that and their culture fit, the organization is more sustainable and successful.
6) Perception
A perception of dedication and commitment begin to form and it won’t be positive. This too will hold you back because when your name is mentioned or thought of there is hesitation. Because leaders of the organization pay attention to that hesitation, it becomes a seed of doubt. In contrast, by demonstrating a pro-company mindset, working with and helping improve the culture creates a positive perception.
7) Creation of Risk Culture
These things add up and cause customer facing risks for the organization. This happens because those who are delivering services and value to the customers or enabling others to service the customer is not in alignment with the organization’s leadership brand. The structure and guidelines that govern how people are supposed to act in their day-to-day decisions and activities are misguided. As a result, this leads to customer satisfaction issues, varied customer experiences and can make it harder to retain and attract clients and talent.
When someone is an unhealthy cultural maverick, the values of the organization aren’t guiding the decisions in their day-to-day activities. It creates employee and client satisfaction issues. It causes the organization to lose its identity and is harder to establish the desired organizational leadership brand in the market. This makes acquiring new clients more difficult and hurts your employee recruitment and retention efforts. By realigning the people to the values and linking them to the overall performance you can tame the cultural maverick thereby reinforcing the cultural expectations of the organization.
Last updated on January 5th, 2019 at 06:57 am
