Corporate Culture – and the Road Toward “Success”

By Larry Ventimiglio

 

While business “success” is built upon professional leadership, management, and staff proactively performing their functional responsibilities in a synergistic manner, and guided by a unifying corporate vision, the visible result of that “success” is reported in the historical financial statements in the form of consistent and attractive profitability and growth results.

The Role of Corporate Culture

Corporate culture can either make or break an organization.  That’s a pretty powerful statement!  While corporate culture may be intangible, its impact is VERY visible – either positive OR negative.  A company’s culture is a collection of self-sustaining patterns of behavior, feeling, thinking, and believing.  Collectively, these are the patterns that determine “the way we do things around here.”  At its best, positive corporate culture is an immense source of value and positive motivation.  It enables, energizes, and enhances employees, and thus fosters consistent high-powered performance and morale.  At its worst, negative corporate culture can be a drag on productivity, morale and emotional commitment, undermining consistent and long-term business success.

Several Elements of Great Corporate Culture 

In a recent article published in the Harvard Business Review, John Coleman identifies six common components of great cultures as follows:

1. Vision: A great culture begins with a vision or mission statement. These simple turns of phrase guide a company’s values and provide it with purpose. That purpose, in turn, orients every decision employees make. When they are deeply authentic and prominently displayed, good vision statements can even help orient customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders.

2. Values: A company’s values are the core of its culture. While vision articulates a company’s purpose, values offer a set of guidelines on behaviors and mindsets needed to achieve that vision.

3. Practices: Values are of little importance unless they are enshrined in a company’s practices. We need to practice what we preach!

4. People: No company can build a coherent culture without people who either share its core values or possess the willingness and abilities to embrace those values.

5. Narrative: Every organization has a unique history – a unique story. The ability to unearth that history and craft it into a narrative is a core element of cultural creation.

6. Place: Place shapes culture. Place – whether geography, architecture, or aesthetic design – impacts the values and behaviors of people in a workplace.

These six components can provide a firm foundation for shaping a new organization’s culture. Additionally, identifying and understanding them more fully in an existing organization can be the first step to revitalizing or reshaping culture in a company looking for change.

The View and Behaviors From the Top

 It is one thing to recognize the importance of corporate culture in business, but quite another to be a positive and effective cultural chief executive.  The CEO is the most visible leader in a company.  His or her direct engagement in all facets of the company’s culture can make an enormous difference (either positive or negative), not simply in how people feel about the company, but in how they perform.  Developing an engaging, respectful, trusting workplace culture is not the result of any one single thing.  It’s a combination of intent, process, and heart, and together, this combination needs to be constantly fine-tuned.  Successful corporate leaders enjoy the benefits of promoting a positive corporate culture that is in sync with their corporate strategies.  The most visible benefit is in the form of consistent and attractive profitability and growth results over time.  Employees are confident and energized, while taking pride in their work and the organization’s success.  Morale is consistently HIGH!

It’s always important to remember that effective business leaders have learned that it is essential to emulate the key behaviors expected from their employees.  While you may be quite capable of “talking the talk”, talk is cheap, and employees expect you to “walk the walk”.

You need to be a living model of the culture you aspire to lead.  People pay close attention to What the CEO DOES, not merely what the CEO says!  PR Communications have limited inspirational value if leadership behavior is a poor example.  Actions “speak volumes louder” than words, and can often drown out the words.  Sound familiar?  Ultimately, corporate culture (whether positive, neutral or negative) tends to drift toward the behaviors exhibited by the corporate leaders, rather than behaviors communicated by corporate leaders.  This is particularly true in small companies where the business leader has nowhere to hide.  If you are a corporate leader, you need to look inwardly and objectively evaluate your cultural actions and behaviors.  Are YOU emulating the key behaviors you expect from your employees?

The Bottom Line 

Business is a collaborative process, comprised of interactive functional areas which need to be in synchronization with each other in order for the business to achieve desired and consistently profitable performance results over time.  Corporate culture is a visible element within every organization which may have a positive OR negative impact on desired performance.  You see, everything – gets back to the numbers!

What about YOUR organization?  What kind of corporate culture are your actions and behaviors promoting?

 

For more information on how I may be able to assist your organization “fine-tune” your corporate culture to improve performance, please visit my website and let’s talk.