Developing Your Organisation’s Culture – 7 Tips
October 1, 2009
Consciously developing your organizational culture is more important than ever. At the end of the day if you aren’t developing it, then it’s developing you.
People are seeking to work for a business where they can experience fulfilment and authenticity. Organizations which treat their employees well have experienced a better retention rate, increased productivity, increased innovation and lower sickness and absenteeism.
That said developing your organizational culture can be a big challenge for the leaders as well as its employees. Here are few suggestions of things you can do:-
• Analyze your corporation’s existing culture and compare it with employees, suppliers and customers’ expectations and perceptions. There are even tools that can measure this very accurately now and give valuable business insight that helps with performance and growth.
• Discuss the existing culture in your department. What aspects of the culture are great, what’s good and what needs to change? Then agree what you’d like the culture to be and how everyone can support and make it happen.
• Induction. This isn’t just about training new recruits in their job, it’s about making them aware of the culture you’re growing and how they can play their part. Even though you’ve made the culture clear in the interview process, so you’ve not recruited a misfit, it’s not enough to think that’ll do. There are of course still companies that spend all their focus on skills and fail to explain the culture and check for alignment – which of course is expensive as they can find themselves losing the new recruit within the next 6 months and having to start all over again.
• Communication. And I’m not talking a quick 2 line email saying our culture / values are this, it’s important and can you just send a quick reminder to all your staff. Yes those emails are still too common, ouch. I’m talking about a 2 way conversation where you bring awareness that this isn’t a band-aid or quick fix approach. Rather an ongoing, strategic process to build a more attractive culture that fits the needs of the organization and that can improve its business growth.
• Have Champions. This is a journey so it’s important to have people who whole heartedly support the creation of this desired culture. Plus it’s important that the champions / key culture group realise that not everyone is going to jump onboard right away. There’s going to be scepticism, even from those who would like the desired culture.
• Momentum and Measurement. Developing the culture to being a sustainable, profitable and healthy one for both the business and staff takes time. Look for low hanging fruit, celebrate what works, don’t re-enforce what doesn’t. Lastly measure. Not incessantly but say every 12 months assess your progress against the desired end point.
If you want to do more, if you’d like to measure your culture, if you’d like to discuss how you can not only manage your culture but generate wealth from it, then give us a call.
Transforming the Corporate Culture
October 7, 2008
When a corporation hires a proven leader to revive a sagging operation, the hardest part of the job isn’t what’s seen on the balance sheet. Of course attention is given to improving the numbers in sales, productivity, employee retention and other measurable items. However very often the biggest challenge comes in transforming the corporate culture. Unless this happens early in the new leader’s reign, then little else will go right. Corporations have a culture that was either shaped by the previous leadership or occurred by default. Either way if the ‘unit’ isn’t performing as desired then the current culture is a significant factor.
A weak or distant leader ignores the corporate culture, which makes it possible for divisions to be created between departments and middle managers. If you do a values based feedback on these leaders, often words like controlling, manipulative or being liked crop up.
Any new leader has to immediately make an impact on the corporate culture in positive ways or that leader will lack the power to implement significant and lasting change. Easier said than done with something as intangible but powerful as culture. You could watch and pay attention, but that’s the long game and maybe you don’t have time. You could measure it, find out what everyone in the organisation really values and thinks is important – and rarely does your staff satisfaction survey ever reveal this level of information.
Transforming the corporate culture isn’t tossing out all that exists as wrong and imposing a new culture by memo. A real leader magnifies and applauds the positive factors in the corporate culture and then, by motivation and inspiration as well as example, begins to turn the corporate culture away from negative attitudes. The blend of the best of the old culture and exciting new ideas can revitalize a corporate culture and motivate employees to perform at their very best. You’ll see the fruits of your labour in the balance sheet, your sales, productivity, innovation and employee retention figures will show a marked difference.
Business resilience in todays credit crunch economy
September 9, 2008
On the 22nd of September I’ll be giving a talk for the Turnaround Management Association .
With continued talk of recession, the credit crunch and an increase in raw material costs, many businesses are facing challenges on all fronts.
I’ll be offering my views on the impact corporate culture has on all of this and the real bottom line benefits of building a values driven business. It’s not THE answer to what’s going on in the world of business and the economy, but it makes a significant difference.
Join me where I’ll share :-
Full details of the location etc are available here.
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