Culture is a magnet. A strong culture is the foundation of an excellent workplace. Culture is embedded in every aspect of your organization. It is like your company’s operating system.
Culture is the combination of attitudes, language and behaviors that pervades every aspect of your company. It guides how employees think, act and feel. It either attracts or repels top talent, and either alienates or bonds current employees.
Whether it is positive or negative, your culture endures. The behavior that is modeled by the leaders and the management team profoundly shapes the culture of the organization. What leaders and managers emphasize, reward and routinely talk about sets the tone of the culture.
Some of the most visible expressions of your company’s culture are the artifacts, things such as the architecture, the décor, the clothing people wear, the rituals, the symbols and the celebrations. Just look around your main lobby area to get clues.
A culture of excellence is a culture of trust, integrity, respect, impeccable communication, maximum accountability, complete alignment, collaboration, cooperation, energy, vitality, joy, engagement and passion. What is your organization’s culture? If you were to describe it to an outsider, what words would you use?
Think about what’s really important, the behaviors that are rewarded and who fits in. A useful approach to clearly identifying your culture is to ask your employees what they say about your company when talking with their friends.
In many cases, a company’s culture has evolved over time, in an organic way, sometimes simply by default. Your job is to deliberately create your company’s culture so that it reinforces your corporate goals, supports your strategic business imperatives and attracts great talent.
Sometimes financial success can mask an unhealthy corporate culture. Brian, a
CFO for a mortgage company, was pleased with his company’s financial success, but realized that the corporate culture was unhealthy. Gossip was rife, insults and rude behavior had become acceptable and turf wars were becoming increasingly common. Brian realized that these bad habits and low standards of behavior were a primary cause of unusually high turnover, difficulty attracting good talent and mediocre performance, which in turn was affecting the quality of customer service.
While the company continued to grow and show financial gains, the culture issues had been ignored. When business slowed, the CEO issued a directive to senior management to “clean things up” and help the company recover.
Brian understood that the only way to grow the business through increased sales and revenue was to build a strong, vibrant workplace so that it could attract and retain great talent. He realized the starting point for building an excellent workplace was to begin with a re-engineering of the company’s culture.
In his book Re-imagine, Tom Peters wrote, “Culture change is not ‘corporate.’ Culture change is not a ‘program.’ Culture change does not take ‘years.’ Culture change starts ‘today.’ It starts right now, and it is entirely in your hands!”
Sandy Asch is principal of Alliance for Organizational Excellence LLC, a San Diego-based consulting company. Recognized as an industry leader, Sandy is founder of the San Diego Employer of Choice Forum, author of Excellence at Work: The Six Keys to Inspire Passion in the Workplace and a dynamic speaker. She consults with companies on how to attract, optimize and retain top talent to improve bottom-line business results. For more information or to register for the San Diego 2008 Employer of Choice workshop series, please contact Sandy at sandy@Uexcel.com or visit www.Uexcel.com
