Ducks In A Row: Value of Culture
by Miki Saxon
When I started RampUp Solutions way back in 1999 and talked/preached/ranted) about the importance of culture I was often met with a bored expression or an eye roll.
Back then culture was an ethereal concept compounded of smoke and mirrors and propagated by consultants whose main purpose was to generate business.
That attitude has radically changed over the last decade…
“…Our final advantage is the hard-to-duplicate culture that permeates Berkshire. And in businesses, culture counts.” —Warren Buffett
“Culture has become the defining issue that will distinguish the most successful businesses from the rest of the pack.” —Ginny Rometty, SVP, Group Executive, Sales, Marketing, and Strategy, IBM
“…he [Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO, DreamWorks Animation] didn’t always know how important it is to make employees happy in their jobs. … Had Katzenberg known earlier how critical it is to build a best company to work for, he told me, he might have been more successful than he is.”
Tony Hsieh, Jeff Immelt, numerous academics, assorted pundits, gurus and coaches, not to mention all forms of media, are focused on culture.
With all the talk and solid examples of the bottom line value of good culture why do so many companies, large and small, provide an employee experience that can only be described as ‘lousy’?
Because companies don’t provide culture, managers do.
Managers, from CEO to team leader, create/enable whatever culture exists below them.
But they have little-to-no effect on the shape of the culture above them, unless that culture permits the influence, as illustrated by the creation of Best Buy’s ROWE.
It’s not that managers don’t get it, but understanding something and doing it is not the same thing.
Understanding is grounded in intellect.
Doing is grounded in MAP.
And MAP is a personal choice over which companies have no control.
Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zedbee/103147140/
