Opinion: The Case for a Proactive Company Culture

Company culture is one of those terms people are familiar with but have differing opinions about. I’ve developed a simple definition: Culture is how we do our work.

Culture expresses the attitudes, behaviors and values most strongly influencing how people accomplish tasks and communication. Every company has a culture, and it has either been created proactively or passively. Either the leader has created their culture with deliberate intention or permitted one to evolve.

Great leaders think differently when it comes to culture and engagement. While some leaders create financial worth through their products, business processes and procedures, great leaders create financial worth with and through people, values and culture. They create an environment where employees want to give their best effort; want to leverage their talents to help the company succeed.

Culture also is important to your company’s operation because it has a positive or negative multiplier effect. An experienced employee’s attitude and behavior often influences new employees. If the culture is weak and the values aren’t clear or are not clearly lived out, then the new employee adopts the prevailing behaviors and attitudes of co-workers.

Employees today have more discretionary control over job choices thanks to a tightening labor market. They increasingly expect an employer to care about, appreciate and respect them. Jack and Suzanne Welch, in their book “Winning,” suggest the top corporate title should be changed to “chief meaning officer” because providing employees a sense of meaning is critical to motivating and retaining them.

Culture and engagement are powerful devices in the leader’s toolkit. Culture, however, is a serious problem today. According to the Deloitte 2015 Global Human Capital Trends study, culture and engagement is now the most important issue companies face globally. Some 87 percent of organizations cite culture and engagement as their top challenge.

Business strategy today often includes discussion about culture – and for good reason. A 2013 Harvard Business Review article, “Six Components of a Great Corporate Culture,” reports that “culture can account for 20 to 30 percent of the differential in corporate performance when compared with culturally unremarkable competitors.” Another study by the Gallup organization identified 12 elements that create highly engaged employees and labeled them in two categories: the management’s supervisory skills and a company culture that gives employees a sense they are important to the organization’s mission and purpose.

There also is ample empirical evidence that strong culture and engagement offers other benefits, such as lower turnover rates, higher retention of top employees, attracting better talent, improved morale, happier customers, and increased productivity and quality.  

But creating stronger culture presents a bigger test. Leaders must have clear, consistent values that are regularly reinforced. Management must exemplify the values, recognize good behavior and promptly correct employees when the organization’s values aren’t fulfilled.

Good examples of duplicating strong culture and values are Silver Dollar City and Chick-fil-A, which is known for delivering a consistent customer experience across its footprint.

As leaders, we are the culture creators and the culture carriers for our company. We communicate living, breathing values that are clear to everyone. We exemplify and regularly reinforce our values. That’s when performance lifts and our employees remain loyal.

In the absence of clear values, however, employees create their own. That’s when performance suffers and while employees may remain on the payroll, they may actually be thinking, I quit but forgot to tell you.

Mark Holmes is a consultant and professional speaker helping companies improve leadership, sales and service. He’s given over 2,000 seminars and keynotes and written three books. Holmes can be reached at mark@markholmesgroup.com.