CORPORATE CULTURE

CORPORATE CULTURE

Raison d’etre: Reason for Existence

  • “We exist to connect people to what’s important in their lives”. Southwest Airlines
  • Culture drives everything that happens in organizations, good or bad.
  • Have a mission statement that outlines the culture we want. Most of the time those key elements are ignored. Leaders must reinforce the culture we want.
  • Invest equal time and energy managing the quality of your work culture as you do managing the results it produces.

Three key questions will help a company gauge the effectiveness of their current operating culture:

  1. How engaged are the employees?
  2. What is the quality of the customer experience?
  3. How well are we performing?

Chris Edmonds

What is Culture?

  1. Identity:    This is WHO we are.
  2. Direction: This is WHERE we are heading.
  3. Action:       This is WHAT we will do.

Every company has culture/cultures. These cultures come from the personal backgrounds and values of individuals and of groups within. Unfortunately, the fact that there are many cultures, militates against unity of purpose and the creation of a team. It promotes division. The idea is that leadership needs to discover and work on the creation of a single culture. Leadership must not dictate but must incorporate the people of the business – and together they must work on this exercise.

Framework:

The most important factors in any business organisation are Customer, Staff and Company/Sustainability.

The Purpose and Values of an organization must cater for customer, staff members and share holders. Unless all 3 are catered for there cannot be sustainability.

  • An organization exists because there is a client.
  • The customers cannot be serviced unless there are staff members.
  • If the operation is not adequately profitable, it cannot or will not be sustained.

The Core Values lie in the manner in which the needs of Customer and Staff are identified and met.

In terms of sustainability, the triple bottom line is used as a guide (Profit, People, and Planet)

How do we Craft the Culture of the Organisation?

Using a framework, we need to involve the leadership team as well as the people in the business to establish the Purpose and Values Statement. In the crafting of the Purpose and Values Statement, we need to address the critical essentials of every business organisation. viz. Customers, Staff, Sustainability

CUSTOMER

  1. Who is the customer?
  2. What are their needs?
  3. How do we satisfy their needs?

STAFF

  1. Who are the members of staff ?
  2. What are their needs?
  3. How do we satisfy their needs?

SUSTAINABILITY

  1. Profit (adequate) – economically viable
  2. People (Industry/Community) – socially responsible
  3. Planet (Environment) – environmentally sound