With unprecedented economic and complex challenges facing companies today, the common link, or hidden secret of successful companies, is a strong and well-managed corporate culture. In other words, when it comes to long-range success, it’s all about your culture!
A strong and well-managed corporate culture — the social architecture of a successful company — blends and balances the talents, needs, and expectations of valued employees and associates; a shared organizational vision; a safe, ethical, respectful, and family-friendly working environment; and long-term shared results and rewards as the cultural fiber of long-term success. In addition, and very important, is a strong commitment to corporate citizenship, community and industry involvement, and the sense of giving back, that provides a valuable moral compass for the social architecture and supports the organization’s mission and vision.
Successful businesses build their organizational and cultural foundation alongside valued employees and associates. Recruiting and retaining talent and skill sets — and engaging, growing, and developing the organization’s human and intellectual capital or its knowledge workers — are the essential foundations for long-term business and cultural success.
Creating a fun, stimulating, and rewarding work environment for associates is vital. Having fun and enjoying time together as business associates is critical. Embracing a family-friendly atmosphere where healthy work-life balance is supported by ethical, respectful, safe, trusting and participative culture is essential. Throwing out the old rules (“this is how we’ve always done things in the past”) by allowing employees the freedom to do the right thing for the customer, the business, and the culture. Celebrating the good times, even when they fail, should be a common occurrence.
Strong and well-managed cultures empower and encourage associate participation throughout the organization, in particular in decision-making, both large and small. Work group, committee, and task force participation and decision-making authority provide extremely valuable decision-making that comes from the bottom up. With empowerment and participation come mutually vested interests, buy-in, and ownership.
It is important to understand and recognize that associates should share in the overall financial success of the organization. Ownership, or having “skin in the game,” is optimum. From profit-sharing to phantom stock, to employee ownership, all are valuable and results-oriented incentive options. Pay-for-performance salary, bonus, and incentive systems tied directly to personal and organizational performance are extremely effective compensation tools (and retention tools!) that reinforce the associates’ ownership mentality and mindset. At the end of the day, it is imperative to have created a “win-win” risk-and-reward culture for the associate, the customer, and organization.
Providing opportunities for personal and professional growth and development is crucial to maintain, grow, and develop the long-range knowledge and talent required to sustain success and culture. Training and development, advanced education, industry involvement and participation, shadowing, and exchange programs and mentoring programs are all initiatives of merit. Investing in the knowledge worker is in the best long-term interest of the associate, the customer, and the organization … and as importantly, its corporate culture.
A focus on and appreciation for customers and a companywide cultural commitment to developing long-term customer relationships is at the heart of the mission and vision of the successful and well-managed business culture. Focusing on the needs of our valued customers is the foundation of our customer dedication. Commitment to customer partnerships, exceeding their expectations and the appreciation for their lifetime value is paramount in ensuring long-term win-win customer-vendor relationships. In order to achieve this level of cultural success, a commitment at all levels of the organization that exceeds the customers’ expectations and enhances the organizational-wide mindset of “creating value by becoming invaluable.”
The responsibility of senior management is to effectively and frequently communicate the mission and vision of the organization. Every associate, at all levels of the organization, must have full knowledge and understanding of the company’s mission and vision and have a vested interest and shared responsibility for its success. Entrepreneurial spirit and innovation should be encouraged; exceeding expectations and producing tangible financial and intangible cultural results, the norm.
Finally, working together, senior management and associates focus on long-range growth and diversification of the organization and succeed in doing so through organic growth and acquisition. After all, the legacy of the successful and well-managed corporate culture is intended to perpetuate and share with future generations of the organization.
In looking for the secret to long-range business success, one needs to look no further than the organization’s corporate culture. It’s really a simple and obvious formula. Good people; real solutions; shared results … three cornerstones of successful businesses and well-managed corporate cultures.
Tags: corporate responsibility, strategy
