Did you know that nearly 95% of microbusiness owners and workers think that organizational culture is the essential characteristic of their work? Were you aware that millennial business owners and workers care more about people and organizational culture than any other descriptor of their work? Did you know that worker engagement depends on business culture and that engagement can improve a firm’s performance by over 200%?
Why do owners of creative or service microbusinesses spend so much time worried about sales as the only path to success when a culture of sales is anathema to worker engagement in small innovative businesses? Why don’t they focus on their organizational culture as their primary tool for meeting their goals?
Because that is what they are taught. Repeatedly. They are taught that it’s their fault they are not millionaires because they are ashamed of making money. They are trained to respect what they do and help those who can afford it. They are taught phrases like:
If they bought a car, they wouldn’t be allowed to stop paying for it.
But wait for a second. Of course, you can stop paying, and they take the car back. It’s the same for all service microbusinesses too. We stop providing service, and they don’t pay. We sell our creativity, art, service, and ability to change or improve their lives. If they stop paying, we stop providing.
Recently I sat in on a Facebook live consulting group making their case for better business administration techniques in the martial arts industry. Since I’m in the martial arts industry, have an MBA, and my Ph.D. domain is micro business culture and leadership, I was interested in knowing if the newer people in the business had changed their basic cultural patterns. They had not. The essential bookkeeping and administrative advice offered in the webinar was excellent but identical to 30 years ago, no matter how much the vocabulary had changed.
The Competing Values Framework
They still espouse a more significant purpose but bound it by mercenary sales tactics. They are, through and through, what the competing values framework1 (CVF) for organizational culture labels a marketing culture with a lean into a hierarchical culture. In other words, their primary measure of success is cash flow and sales, usually the number of net students who are paying. Yet, they claim their primary concern is changing those students’ lives.
The Misalignment with Espoused Purpose, changing lives, and Enacted Behavior, market/hierarchical culture reduce the organization’s success, performance, profitability, and long-term sustainability.
There is nothing wrong with marketing culture. Most businesses are on the spectrum between marketing and hierarchical cultures. However, the literature suggests that service businesses are better off if they are between clan culture and adhocracy culture. The hindrance to my industry’s ability to provide the service they all believe in melts my heart. We could change the world. But we don’t.
We could change the world. But we don’t.
I have been a martial artist since the 70s, and I used the martial arts, my church, and my family to fight back against a traumatic brain injury and PTSD that was supposed to end with my death, hospitalization, divorce, or jail. Martial arts were a big reason that did not happen. I know the power of what it has to offer. I hate to see friends, peers, and strangers fight through cognitive dissonance as their core values clash with the standard or modified pitch from a billion consultants, all selling the one true way. And we were all wrong.
There are Many True Ways – and They Are All Based on YOU.
There are many true ways. Microbusinesses are 1/2 of the American economy, and every one has its core values, purpose, story, mission, and vision. They also have skills, associates, and capital or need more money. They are all different, and the context of their art and community differs from every other school. What works for one will most likely either not work for another or work only once, and then they quit in frustration or business failure. Yet, there is a way. This complexity has its own doctoral discipline that explores, creates, and adjusts frameworks, like the CVF, to solve this exact problem. I happen to be one of those people. As a micro business consultant for nearly every other trade other than martial arts, I have found that the owners, operators, and founders know that they are the talent and that we are only the guide. It is their story, and we only guide them.
The Only Way
But not in martial arts. Many of my industry’s consultants tell you the way it is. The only way. They claim both flexibility and absolutism. They change only the words they use to sell. It scares me.
If a consultant tries to sell you The System to run your school or business, they need to learn or care about your story. They probably have told you their story instead.
Go find a real knowledge expert and ask for help.
Microbusiness owners are different. We see possibilities in any blank space. We see color during darkness.
We are different and innovative, creative, and in business because we are different. Find a consultant that cares about YOUR STORY more than their own.
Notes:
1 Strengers, J., Mutsaers, L., van Rossum, L., & Graamans, E. (2022). The organizational culture of scale-ups and performance. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 35(8), 115-130. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOCM-09-2021-0268
Do you want to subscribe to my free quarterly Newsletter for small and micro businesses? Click HERE, and subscribe!
Leave a Reply