Everyone is doing it - so should I?

Tomorrow is St. Patty's day - the day when everyone is Irish. With that in mind, there are companies where eveyone migrates to being the same, where workplace culture is deeply ingrained. On the plus side, this can promote an "all for one" attitude. On the minus side, people can succumb to groupthink and creativity can be stifled. This can hamper productivity and growth at a time when product/service diversity is critical.

If your personality assessments show you as highly creative or entrepreneurial, you may not fit with workplaces that have characteristics below.

The "follower" workplace:

1. Complete outfits become exact (and I don't mean in uniform environments)
2. Bizspeak is common; phrases are the same, so much so that you can finish each others sentences: "moving forward", "out of the box", "80/20", "on the DL"
3. Out of the box thinking actually isn't common
4. Patronizing the boss is common
5. New ideas are criticized by managers in an open forum in front of colleagues
6. Lunching with colleagues outside the company is not popular

There are small, but effective things that managers and companies can do to have a balanced office culture so that it is both diverse and cohesive. Sstay tuned for more in an upcoming post.