Company Culture is Like AI: Garbage In? Garbage Out.

If there is one key takeaway from living through the last 10 years, it might be this: Beware the Algorithm.

Every day we hear stories that range from humorous to terrifying about AI outputs that are varying degrees of wrong and potentially dangerous. A close relative of mine used AI to update their professional bio, and it made up awards that he had never received! From nonexisting citations and revisionist history, to made up bios and resumes, to absurd and fabricated conspiracy theories, we should take any AI output with at least a few grains of salt.

At its best, AI is a tool that can help people do their work. We need to remember, though, that the algorithms are largely invisible by design. We don’t know where the data is coming from, or if it’s been validated. We don’t know if the algorithms have been checked for bias and quality. If we don’t know the inputs are going into our queries, we can’t fully trust the results. Garbage in, garbage out.

In many companies, culture works the same way: it is usually a hidden, intangible force that affects every second of our experience at work. Culture determines whether people stay with or seek employment elsewhere. It determines whether people feel like their leadership wants them to succeed or doesn’t care if they fail. It determines whether people are proud of their work at the end of the day, or whether they leave feeling unappreciated. This directly affects the bottom line.

There is indisputable evidence that people can’t succeed at work if the culture is bad. If employees are suffering, so is the company. We all know from our own lives that when we are stressed, or sick, or fearful, or angry we can’t show up as our best selves and deliver a top-notch performance. For most of us, work is one major contributor to those negative emotions.

For companies to not invest time, money, and energy in proactively - and continuously - building a better culture by removing some of the sources of stress, anger and fear at work is essentially sabotaging their employees' performance. At some point, employees get cynical because they do not experience the culture and values that the company says are in place. They start asking themselves, if my company doesn’t care about me, why should I invest so much of myself in my company?

Again, garbage in, garbage out.

At Barometer XP, we work with companies to put their values and ideal culture into practice. We create one-of-a-kind team play-based experiences that bring the invisible algorithm of company culture into the light, and explore how to do better. We help build (or repair) the trust, interdependence, and shared accountability that makes work meaningful and effective for everyone, including the bottom line.

If you’d like to learn more about how we can help you achieve the culture of your dreams, I’d love to meet you. Let’s talk!