Five Levers for Building Your Desired Culture

Lofty platitudes need not apply

Wed, 07/11/2018 - 12:03

In more than 130 interviews with high-performing CEOs, across a wide variety of industries, culture was almost universally cited as the single most important factor contributing to company success.

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Why is culture so important? Because culture drives how employees feel about working at your company. And this drives productivity, discretionary effort, and customer experience.

A recent Aon Hewitt study shows that engagement does drive financial performance. According to the study, “a five-point increase in employee engagement is linked to a three-point increase in revenue growth in the subsequent year.”

Here are five approaches to bringing your desired culture to life in your business. It’s a lot more than putting platitudes on the wall in your break room. It takes strength, honesty, and an intentional strategy.

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Comments

Many years ago, I saw an interview with the CEO of a major corporation (I wish I could remember either the company or the CEO). He stated that he only valued an MBA when it was earned by an active employee, as MBA's with no work experience came with a tool set and no idea what they fit.

This article is extremely useful, and I will quote the first sentence in presentations I am putting together on ISO 9004 and organizational culture. It supports ISO 9004:2018 clause 6.2, "Mission, vision, values, and culture" which is perhaps the most important element of ISO 9004. The self-assessment section of ISO 9004 talks about processes to attract engaged and motivated employees. My opinion is that the organization must motivate and engage them, and this article shows how this can be done.

The concept is not particularly new, as Napoleon Bonaparte said that morale is more important than technology and even training, while Carl von Clausewitz cited the nationalistic "identify of an organization" that created unity of purpose among the French, who now regarded themselves as citizens with stakes in their country and government. This gave Napoleon the means to conquer most of Europe. The Ford Motor Company also had an organizational identity during the 1910s and 1920s in which workers saw themselves as stakeholders who would get a fair share of any productivity improvements they initiated. Part of the organizational culture was such that workers therefore took immediate and almost personal exception to any form of waste, even machining waste that many people take for granted today, they noticed in the shop.

You are also correct that leaders must walk their talk. "We’ve all seen cases where a company espouses one set of values on their break room wall and another set of values in executive behavior." A CEO once invited W. Edwards Deming to teach Total Quality Management to his executives. He introduced Deming, told the executives he wanted them to learn everything Deming could teach them, and then walked out of the room. That was the end of TQM at that organization. (Michael George, "Lean Six Sigma")

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