A few months ago, I wrote about Toyota’s laser-like cultural focus as an example of how culture impacts success.

What happens to the company culture when stellar success and enormous growth require massive hiring at all levels from around the world?

Companies of all sizes face the same problem when success fuels hyper-growth and cultural focus often falls by the wayside.

In a Business Week article, Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe says, “The scariest symptom of ‘big-company disease’ is that complacency will breed,” and “…top executives believe the key is relentless reinforcement of a culture that shuns the pitfalls of U.S. carmakers, which became too mired in business as usual to break out of bad habits.”

It’s a lesson that every CEO of every company should take to heart, but especially those of you running startups or small businesses.

Why? Because the easiest time to form your culture is when there’s just a few of you- it becomes harder as you grow. Plus, if you consciously plan and develop your culture early, you can use it to screen candidates to be sure that they are, at the very least, synergistic with it.

So, if you want to get to the top, and stay on top, read the articles and learn why it pays to start and stay culture-centric.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 5th, 2007 at 10:24 am and is filed under Business info, Culture, Hiring, Leadership, Motivation, Retention. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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