Corporate culture describes and governs the ways a company's owners, managers and employees think, feel and act. Regardless of whether your corporate culture written as a mission statement, spoken or merely understood your corporate culture plays a big role in determining how well your business will do. It has a direct impact on your company’s financial performance.
Whilst most companies have a vision and mission, very few have written a formal ‘corporate culture’ strategy in place. It just happens, and the ‘way things are done’ varies depending on who is in charge. However, in today’s highly competitive, increasingly connected markets, it is even more important companies take a proactive approach to their corporate culture.
HR.com and Crawford international found in their on ‘Leadership and Culture’ that “...companies with positive corporate cultures, matched with effective leadership efforts, clearly outperform competitors.”
Successful cultures are not set in stone. It needs to be ‘adaptive’ so as to more easily take advantage of market opportunities and respond more effectively to any challenges.
How to change Your Corporate culture
Changing your corporate culture is not easy as it affects the entire company on multiple levels. Employees have to adopt new ways to do things (behavioural) and how to think (emotional).
Here are four important challenges to consider when implementing a new corporate culture strategy:
- Cognitive – employees must have an understanding as to why there’s a need to change company values;
- Limited resources – company resources must be managed to support the new strategy;
- Motivation – there must be a desire from the top to make a change;
- Institutional politics – management must buy into the new strategy and deal effectively with employees’ criticism, angst and resistance.
Here are some straight-forward and effective methods you will need to implement in your workplace:
- Tipping-point approach – know that you won’t be able to convert everyone at once; begin with those who offer little influence in your company.
- Redistribute resources toward high-productivity ‘hot spots’ and away from high-demand, low-impact ‘cold spots’.
- Appoint at least one champion in every division to implement the new strategy.
Changing your company’s culture is a strategic decision that needs to be made and championed at the very top of your organisation.
Your aim should be to create a corporate culture that attracts, retains and promotes the right people, encourages innovation, welcomes initiative and motivates everyone to achieve your company’s vision, mission and goals.
Analyse any successful company and you will find they all take a proactive approach to their corporate culture.
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