10 Reasons to Focus on Company Culture

Yesterday we posted on Fistful of Talent connecting the "Broken Window Theory" of behavioral norms that reduce crime to ways of reinforcing company culture.  Today we highlight an article from the Harvard Business School Working Knowledge website. 

The article is entitled:  10 Reasons to Design a Better Corporate Culture.  We pulled out some of the reasons that specifically deal with rewards, reinforcement and influence. I urge you to click through for the complete article.

• Leadership is critical in codifying and maintaining an organizational purpose, values, and vision. Leaders must set the example by living the elements of culture: values, behaviors,  measures, and actions. 
• Like anything worthwhile, culture is something in which you invest. An organization's norms and values aren't formed through speeches but through actions and team learning. Strong cultures have teeth. ...  At Baptist Health Care, for example, managers constantly reinforce the culture by recognizing those whose actions exemplify its values, its behaviors, and its standards.
• Employees at all levels in an organization notice and validate the elements of culture.
• Organizations with clearly codified cultures enjoy labor cost advantages for the following reasons:

• They often become better places to work.
• The level of ownership—referral rates and ideas for improving the business of existing employees—is often high.
• The screening process is simplified, because employees tend to refer acquaintances who behave like them.
• The cost of selecting among many applicants is offset by cost savings as prospective employees sort themselves into and out of consideration for jobs.

• Organizations with clearly codified and enforced cultures enjoy great employee and customer loyalty...
• An operating strategy based on a strong, effective culture is selective of prospective customers. It also requires the periodic "firing" of customers...
• The result of all this is "the best serving the best," or as Ritz-Carlton's mission states, "Ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen."
• This self-reinforcing source of operating leverage must be managed carefully to make sure that it does not result in the development of dogmatic cults with little capacity for change. High-performing organizations periodically revisit and reaffirm their core values and associated behaviors. 
• Organizations with strong and adaptive cultures foster effective succession in the leadership ranks.
• Cultures can sour. Among the reasons for this are success itself, the loss of curiosity and interest in change, the triumph of culture over performance, the failure of leaders to reinforce desired behaviors,...

The main points...

• Leadership has to be a part of the solution - no absentee leaders here
• Ongoing reinforcement - public and real
• Updating and revisiting

If you are a leader take those three points to heart.