According to South African communications practitioner John Bradfield, in today’s business environment of rapid technological change, global competition and shorter product life cycles, companies are increasingly looking at their purpose, the values of their employees, their corporate values, and increased creativity.  More companies are recognising that the quality of communications in their organisations largely depends on the energy and values of its employees. On the surface, and in casual conversation, cultures are described in terms such as “winning culture”, “values culture”, “action culture”, “cost culture”, “learning culture” and even “blame culture”.

Charles Handy provided a useful taxonomy of different cultures when he described four main cultures:

* Power (power rests in a few hands)
* Role (where people have clearly delegated authorities within a highly defined structure)
* Task (teamwork is the norm to solve problems, often in a matrix structure)
* Person (where individuals believe themselves to be superior to the organisation — some professional partnerships operate as a person culture, think of an advertising agency with different partners bringing in specialised expertise for clients).

Why is culture so important? Culture is vital to achieving a company’s competitive strategy. When a company faces major change, often the dominant culture no longer supports the company’s objectives.

Communications helps to link people and values, create common understanding and shared meanings as well as provide feedback both from inside the organisation and outside. It also connects companies with the outside world. Two-way or symmetric communications, where both parties communicate on an equal footing, is seen as the ideal of communications. However, this “ideal” is often not found in real life where large corporations and the mass media dominate. Where each party is willing to alter their behaviour and accommodate the needs of the other, in other words, act out of reciprocity, then what is commonly known as win-win outcomes are achieved. But power, dominance, manipulation, politics, and self-interest make win-win difficult to realise.

The trend towards cultural capital is highly dependent on values or business principles and some corporations are even beginning to recognise the “energy” or “spirit” that people bring to their work. Speaking about energy or spirit in the workplace is often viewed as taboo in hard-nosed commercial, manufacturing, engineering and technology organisations where human values have not always been placed at the top of the corporate agenda. Instead, business people allude to these vital components of life through palatable and inventive semantics such as “business ethics”, “integrity and the workplace”, and “the spirit of cooperation”.

Communicators need to assess how the trend towards values, energy and cultural capital will affect the tone, style and substance of their communications. In the hard-driving business world, communicators have a hard time convincing senior managers to listen to their stakeholders, think through the consequences of their decisions and communicate authentically. Whatever the future holds, there is sure to be resistance and difficulties.

John Bradfield is a communications practitioner and journalist. For the full version of this column, please email: john.bradfield@tiscali.co.za.