Just about every company that I’ve ever come across has questions about Corporate Culture. Many aren’t sure how to create one (which is a culture of its own). Some feel really great about their culture. Others feel the need to radically change it.
Corporate Culture can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. It’s sort of like asking someone to describe what a beautiful person looks like. We also live in a society where some things are valued over others. Examples include Google which has the famous policy of encouraging everyone in their company to work on being innovative one day a week and Bazaarvoice that just received an award for the oddest category I’ve ever seen: the company that most the most unemployed Executives want to go to work at. Some companies have invested so much in culture that they even put it on their site’s main page (again, Bazaarvoice as an example).
A lack of culture (or a really lousy one) seems to be so prevalent in so many companies that when a new start-up is able to really create a great work environment they can get serious mileage out of it. A prime example of this is Josh Baer‘s newest company: OtherInbox. In an effort to foster an environment of independence and collaboration along with innovation, his company’s website, office and marketing strategies are all aimed at ensuring that prospective employees know that they’ll be valued and given the chance to be part of something great. For an example of what I mean, check out the Jobs page.
It goes without saying, corporate culture is easier to create from scratch than to change mid-stream and it also takes a lot of effort and time. I heard Russ Reeder, the CEO of Austin-based LibreDigital suggest the other day, “Building our corporate culture is a journey, not a destination.” I couldn’t agree more.
With the amount of business guides and books in the world today, it’s no wonder so many companies struggle to find themselves conflicted. The difference between reading a business book then thinking about how it would look inside your company and then implementing it are two entirely different things. We see this all of the time with companies who are contemplating either Rockefeller Habits or Topgrading. If a company has been in existence and has an established way of doing things, trying to bring these or any other kind of system or methodology can be downright intimidating – especially if it does not have the fullest support from the Executive Team. In my experience, the companies that have started something and then stopped are much worse off than companies who didn’t try to drive culture at all!
Marty Park, a business coach and amateur blogger from Calgary, AB had this exercise for determining what your existing company culture on his blog. I enjoyed it and hope you might too:
1. Take a piece of paper and write down the first 10 words that come to mind to describe your business and its people. Is it positive, negative? Fun? Performance based?
2. Being as honest as you can, review your list. Are any of your choice words describing how you wish it was or how it really is?
3. Now get 5 other people to do the same exercise anonymously. When you compare the lists of each person, the words that come up repeatedly are the ones that really define your current culture.
