At the top of New Belgium Brewery's organizational culture is transparency. This is allowing employees to know how the business is run; they should have a clear knowledge on what the business is all about. The first step in following effective MBO is to establish objectives mutually agreed between supervisors and employees. In this culture, individualism is reduced, if not eliminated, to allow collaboration within the organization. As a result, employees are secured of their importance in the organization's success. This is a very important organizational culture because this helps employees to achieve self-actualization, according to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. When employees know their worth, they get high satisfaction, which helps the organization to achieve high attainment of its goals.
The good thing about this collaborative culture of NBB is it encourages employees to work harder for the progress of the company because they see themselves benefiting from such. Rather than isolating employees are mere workers in the factory, they become key parts of the decision-making and direction of the company. Of course, we need to understand that the decision comes from the management, but by allowing employees, the decision-making process becomes an integral process that involves several ideas from several people.
In New Belgium Brewery shared values between employees become fundamental motivation for them to come to work. Aside from making profit, the welfare of employees comes to priority. The company does not want to carry over its operations employees who are not happy, who are not satisfied, who are not well-provided, and who are not capable of giving their full potential at work due to the failure of the management.
In a broader sense, New Belgium Brewery follows a combination of the consultative and democratic management. In a consultative or participative management, the executives allow employees to take part of the decision-making process of the organization by giving suggestions and ideas. While in a democratic organization, employees are allowed to carry out tasks that the executives deemed can be done by them. Kim Jordan & Jeff Lebesch understood the importance of building the morale of employees to their productivity and importance. Of course, we need to trace back how the organization started. It started with a family warehouse, and thus the culture is more on “family” relationship of people, wherein people are allowed to participate with the decision-making and individuals are trusted in carrying out tasks. As a result, people are doing almost everything without the harden wall of task descriptions; they do things like a family do because the business progress provides them benefit too.
Yet, in this the most important thing is the decision-making. In NBB, decision-making is much of a shared values intuition network. However, it must be noted that the final decision comes from the manager or executives. If it turns out that the decision-making is the job of all employees, it would be hard to come up with a decision. In the collaborative management, individuals can provide suggestions, but the final decision comes from the manager. This allows a smooth flow of operation without hindering employees to participate.
Looking closely at the organizational culture and the management of the company, we can say that it has a strong one. First, it works with people aside from profit. We must understand that in an organization it is necessary to put the human capital into action. Human capital makes the success of the organization, and with this organization, human capital is handled effectively and efficiently. For instance, by putting the right people into the right department they can work well and the organization runs smooth. Second, the organization's transparent breeds trust. As much as the management trusts the employees of the organization, they too will trust the organization's management. This is a two-way traffic, and this benefits the organization.
And of course, we must take note that the close-knit and open communication between management and employees provide a better avenue for improvement. It does not stop the organization in helping each other and fostering relationships that will help them doing work better. This is the actual goal of the organization: to break the barrier or bureaucracy and create an organization free of thick walls. The good thing about NBB is the way it kept this culture open and strong as it grows. Commonly, when organization's grow they tend to build barrier from the management and employees; but the organization is able to keep its culture the way it started.
In this organization, power and politics issues are less. Thus, it makes people more willing to help and to communicate. This is a problem that most organizations face. When people believe they should climb at the ladder, they become more autocratic than consultative to ensure that they get the position they want. In the same manner, by creating an environment of openness and close relationships, the person's anxiety to change is reduced, as well as the resistance to change. When individuals were requested to attend a financial statement training or an open book management seminar, they did not resist the change that may come because they understand that the organization values them and will not implement changes that may disenfranchise them.
As the organization grows, career development comes into direct play. And this is being employed by the organization. Rather than putting employees the last to develop, they are provided the priority as the organization looks forward for expansion and growth. This is a direct parallel to the organization's perspective on satisfaction. Moreover, it also good to note that employees are satisfied with their compensation and benefits. They should be provided the best means to succeed.
Management and organizational culture are two important things that should be given priority. In recent years, changes have been seen in various organization. The mixture of styles and the clear cut statements on culture are very important to the success of the organization and its forward direction. Empowerment of the people becomes fundamental to the management's culture.
