A630.3.3.RB_DellElceCamila

A630.3.3.RB – A Day in the Life of the Culture Committee

            What is a culture? “A culture is not the behavior of the people ‘living in it’; it is the ‘it’ in which they live—contingencies of social reinforcement, which generate and sustain their behavior” (Brown, 2011, p. 10). Moreover, norms can be defined as “organized and shared ideas regarding what members should do and feel, how this behavior should be regulated, and what sanctions should be applied when behavior does not coincide with social expectations” (Brown, 2011, p. 10). With that been said, I believe Southwest Airlines culture committee is effective at establishing cultural norms. The reason is very simple. Society as a whole tends to follow trends for as long as someone else did them first. In other words, establishing cultural norms depends on that single person who dares to try it first. If the results are positive, then everyone else is on board. Gary Kelly, the CEO suggests that “the Southwest culture has thrived, but it hasn’t been easy” (Southwest Airlines, 2008). Nevertheless, the company’s endurance for this kind of culture has been both their “biggest accomplishment and our most significant challenge” (Southwest Airlines, 208).

            The Southwest Airlines culture committee purpose is based on creating awareness through out the company where employees can take responsibility for their own culture while promoting or motivating others (employees) into presenting above average job performance. Mr. Kelly suggested that in order to create a winning corporate culture, one must make everyone responsible for the corporation’s culture; he also comments that the components that make up a culture should be part of the leadership expectations; and the necessity to have two culture committees in order to concentrate the culture, a local culture committee and a corporate culture committee. Reflecting on my own organization, I recognize that we strive for teamwork, as we all need from each other to make the organization work. In order to make this a possibility, the organization incentives cultural norms, which demands the evaluation of every individual’s responsibility and failure in one area comes from everyone and not one person. For example, as we face a high demand of incoming patients, we are constantly receiving messages from patient’s requests. Although, each employee has a message center, we are all able to see each other’s messages and if we find ourselves free, we are committed to take over someone’s messages to help. I think a viable mission would account for team assessment.

            Indeed, this exercise has a lot to offer for my future relations with my organization. I like to believe that my organization strives for perfection and we really put significant emphasis on becoming outstanding health providers. Nevertheless, we still need more help as to where to start and how to create a culture committee. I would love to feel that my organization has more fun into helping others by making sure nobody is overly worked. Establishing norms that are more feasible for employees to follow and not take as a demand. The Southwest Airlines video provides hope to those who are in the search of a new culture for their organizations.

References

Brown, D. R. (2011). An experiential approach to organization development (8th edition.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Oswald, Dan (2009). Corporate culture Done Right: Southwest Airlines. Retrieved online from http://blogs.hrhero.com/oswaldletters/2009/11/29/corporate-culture-done-right-southwest-airlines/ 

Southwest Airlines (2008). Southwest Airlines “A day in the life of the culture committee” video presentation. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7P0T9IbYKU&feature=youtu.be