| | December 2022MANAGEHRMAGAZINE.COM8In MyOpinionFOSTERING A THRIVING ORGANIZATIONAL CULTUREBy Juana Gomez, Chief People & Culture Officer, Monterey MushroomsIn today's job market, culture has taken center stage; with so much emphasis on Culture, it should be extremely easy to define and talk about Organizational Culture, right? Wrong. It's a very popular word, not as easy to define or drive. In its most basic terms, culture is the norms and values we share as a group in a large or small organization. It is what drives how we interact with each other; what we hold true and close to the heart, what we are proud of, and what drives our interactions day in and day out. The most important aspect of culture is that it starts with people and ends with people. "People go the extra mile because they want to, not because they have to." ~ unknown. The Company is the people who are a part of it. A successful company has a lot of people willing to go the extra mile to achieve a common goal, a shared vision. This culture always starts with top leaders who set the tone and lead by example, who, as my dear friend and mentor, Kay Logterman, would say, "walk-the-talk", who are inclusive, have open communication channels, share a vision, a goal and who continuously share the estate of the business, the plans, the objectives and they share with team members how each teammate can make a difference or how they may be impacted. In a previous life, we grew the organization from a staff of 60 team members to over 2,000, producing over a million cases a week! We overcame situations that would've shut down other organizations, and we thrived because of them. I've been asked, "how, how did you do it"? At the time, I didn't know how to describe it. I was not savvy enough to say, "through our high achieving culture, which at its core believed that the sky was the limit!" What I said was "one conversation at a time". In hindsight, we became a high achieving; we can do anything culture, through conversations, through shared meals. At some point, I started hosting "Pizza Fridays". Each Friday, different teammates from different departments were invited to join Juana Gomez
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