By exploring what the term “organizational culture” encompasses, we discover that the customer experience and the very survival of the organization are a direct result of its culture. This cover story describes a framework for understanding an organization’s culture and identifies activities for a HR professional to focus on in order to affect positive transformation.

The common definition of organizational culture as “the way we do things around here” runs the risk of oversimplification. It is a description of the tangible effects of the culture and yet ignores the most important aspect—the shared beliefs and values that drive “the way we do things”.

Consider two separate companies that both have an open-plan office and both start the week with a team leader meeting; they might be said to have similar organizational cultures. However, one company believes that knowledge within the company should be shared with as many employees as possible and the other believes that employees will shirk their work if they are not visible to the managers and tasks must be tracked closely. As we can see, these companies may appear to have similar cultures but the truth is they are different, and based on very dissimilar beliefs and values.

When we understand that the “way we do things” is a direct result of our shared beliefs, it is useful to consider the three categories of concepts that we hold beliefs about—boundaries, causation and meaning—and what that might mean in organizational terms.

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