Photo: madamenoire.com

It’s year-end, and while some of us corporate sisters are vying for a promotion or raise, others are considering finding a new place of employment. New decisions are being made, new resolutions are being subscribed to (read our post on why you shouldn’t subscribe to professional resolutions this year), new professional avenues are being looked at…As this year is drawing to a close, we are all looking for ways to better ourselves, to make it further this year than last, and maybe to even finally look at this “glass ceiling” in the face and confront it once and for all…Yet few are the discussions around one aspect of our corporate struggles that we, as corporate sisters, should mind even more than others, the big C, that is, the corporate culture we are evolving in or are getting ready to evolve in as we accept a new job, a new position, or embark on a new corporate adventure.

According to wisegeek.com, “corporate culture” is “a set of characteristics that define a business”. It not only involves “employee attitudes, standards, rites and rituals”, but also reflects characteristics found in society, such as the hierarchy system for instance. Or cultural stereotypes, erroneous assumptions, sexism or  flat-out racism. And just like society, it can be positive, neutral, or plain negative… One of my big corporate sisters once told me this about the corporate jungle: “If you hadn’t experienced the real world, well, you’re about to!” In other words, if you didn’t know, now you know…

As corporate sisters, from those of us who are just entering the corporate jungle to the rest of us who have been doing the corporate “do” for a while now, culture is KEY! In order for us to evolve and grow in any environment, especially in the professionally challenging corporate space, we need to mind the culture at hand and wonder IF, and HOW we fit in. Yet it is one of the questions that is rarely asked in interviews. It is also one of the components of our success as women, and double minorities, that is not as much talked about as its resulting negative effects. Why is it that when we enter a room, we as humans are able to sense the “culture” in the room, and either adapt to it or separate ourselves from it? Likewise, when we commit ourselves to a corporate environment in which we intend to evolve and succeed, we should evaluate, measure and pre-position ourselves within the culture that we are entering.

Many a corporate sister has felt the disheartening pressure of a male-dominated, at times racially charged corporate environment. And since corporate culture is but the reflection of our culture as people in general, it should no longer be surprising. What should still surprise us, on the other hand, is that even as we struggle against and many times rise above the challenges of our world culture, we yet to have to put more into question the professional cultures we commit our successes to, possibly before we actually suffer from its negative effects…

So the next time we consider a raise, promotion, or new job, or even just a lateral move in a different department of the same company, maybe one of the first questions we should lean in and ask ourselves, as well as the person on the other side of the table, is: “What is your corporate culture, and how do I, as an ambitious, driven and successful corporate sister, fit in?”

Are you minding your corporate culture?

The Corporate Sister.