As an article on in Forbes points out, your culture is the only part of a company that can’t be duplicated and is, therefore, your biggest and most sustainable asset—if you take the time and invest the energy to make it more than great-sounding words.

While the article doesn’t break new ground it did offer up a great image bite that may resonate with you.

All music is made from the same 12 notes. All culture is made from the same five components: behaviors, relationships, attitudes, values and environment. It’s the way those notes or components are put together that makes things sing.

It points out that the reason that culture can’t be duplicated is context, meaning that two people arranging the same components will have a different result.

That’s because context = MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) and there is not such thing as two people with the same MAP.

Even identical twins won’t have identical MAP because MAP is the result of perception, not just experience.

The problem is building a culture that sings, whether concerto, R&B, pop or rap, takes effort, entrepreneurs are always in a time crunch and culture gets pushed to the back burner.

When that happens just remember that when reality requires you to pivot, when success requires you to staff up quickly, when the bugs surface or your competition is killing you the strength to overcome will be found in your culture—or not.

Flickr image credit: The-Lane-Team

In a series of studies, Francesca Gino and Dan Ariely found that inherently creative people tend to cheat more than noncreative people. Furthermore, they showed that inducing creative behavior tends to induce unethical behavior. HBS Working Knowledge

Not good news when your goal is to increase creativity in your people, but not really surprising.

When we think actively, we see more possibilities, and that includes ways to gain an advantage – a survival mechanism. When we think passively, we don’t see the possibilities, so we follow the rules. –Deb Pekin, Change Manager, Kraft Foods Inc (from a comment)

Creativity isn’t a faucet that can be turned off when it’s inconvenient—it’s part of a person’s MAP; it’s who they are, so they will apply it across the board.

“Dan and I are of the hope that managers will start thinking about how to structure the creative process in such a way that they can keep ethics in check, triggering the good behavior without triggering the bad behavior.”

That’s one approach.

Perhaps a better one is to build a strong ethical culture first and overlay it with a culture that encourages creativity and innovation.

One of the most important things is to make sure that unethical behavior is not tolerated, let alone rewarded; in fact, in some cases it should be terminated.

Of course, that means ethics would trump expediency; not the most common scenario in modern business.

Flickr image credit: zedbee

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

A founder recently told me he didn’t have time for culture because he was too busy building an awesome company.

As I said in a post this spring, Culture is the font, the basis, the cause and the reason. It is the Tao.

I said that in response to Culture Trumps Strategy Everytime by Nilofer Merchant, author of The New How (use link above).

Culture doesn’t happen, it stems from your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) and is propagated through the company as you hire.

At first it’s easy to share your culture because startup founders hire their friends and friends of fiends, which usually means that everyone shares similar values.

But if you don’t think your culture through and then embed it deeply in your company’s soul it won’t stick—to work culture must act like stain not paint.

Perks don’t equal culture; perks are easy, culture takes work,

Your work unless you are comfortable building your company based on someone else’s cultural vision or their interpretation of yours.

Culture is your present and your future; your edge to achieve success and its lack is the first step to failure.

Do you have time for culture?

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Users of Option Sanity may experience sudden increases in team cohesion and worker satisfaction. In cases where team productivity, retention and company success is greater than typical, expect media interest and invitations as keynote speaker.

Image credit: kevinspencer

This is the Year of the Entrepreneur; no matter what media you follow you can’t avoid them.

What makes an entrepreneur and what basics are necessary to performing as one?

For a good overview take a look at Penelope Trunk’s views in Inc. on who is and who isn’t an entrepreneur.

Martin Zwilling’s article at Business Insider detailing seven keys to identifying the “ideal mental age” of an entrepreneur should make you think twice.

Especially in light of the statistical information that shows that the greatest number of entrepreneurs are older, this certainly doesn’t fit the popular image of the kid in her dorm room.

One of the most difficult efforts for any entrepreneur looking to ensure success is establishing the company’s culture. In another commentary at Forbes Zwilling offers up a six point list of what’s necessary to create a good culture. He may have aimed it at entrepreneurs, but it’s applicable for any company.

Enjoy!

Image credit:  MykReeve on flickr

Today we have four stories that sit at the intersection of innovation and culture.

The first is the story of Nick Sarillo, founder of Nick’s Pizza & Pub in Chicago. Sarillo set out to build a culture that ignored common knowledge’ about what to expect from hourly workers. Did he succeed? You tell me.

In an industry in which annual employee turnover of 200 percent is considered normal, Sarillo’s restaurants lose and replace just 20 percent of their staff members every year. Net operating profit in the industry averages 6.6 percent; Sarillo’s runs about 14 percent and has gone as high as 18 percent. Meanwhile, the 14-year-old company does more volume on a per-unit basis (an average of $3.5 million over the past three years) than nearly all independent pizza restaurants. And customers, it seems, adore the service: On three occasions, waitresses have received tips of $1,000.

Next is commentary from Daniel Isenberg, professor of management practice at Babson College, who offers cogent reasoning to save passion for the bedroom.

Passion is up there with innovation in what people think entrepreneurs need in order to succeed. I doubt it. My experience as entrepreneur, entrepreneur educator, and venture capitalist tells me that the more scarce and valuable commodity is cold-shower-self-honesty.

Third on our list is a cautionary tale about what happens when a leader looks for external confirmation that am innovative idea is great and passes on it when none is forthcoming.

Innovation is killed with the two deadliest words in business: Prove it.

When faced with a new idea, the boardroom impulse is to ask for proof in one of two flavors: deductive and inductive.

This attitude gives insight on the difference between Apple and Microsoft—only Microsoft’s blockage is internal according to Dick Brass, a vice president at Microsoft from 1997 to 2004.

Microsoft has become a clumsy, uncompetitive innovator. …

Internal competition is common at great companies. It can be wisely encouraged to force ideas to compete. The problem comes when the competition becomes uncontrolled and destructive. At Microsoft, it has created a dysfunctional corporate culture in which the big established groups are allowed to prey upon emerging teams, belittle their efforts, compete unfairly against them for resources, and over time hector them out of existence.

The striking difference between the culture at Nick’s and the one at Microsoft is a real eye-opener.

Image credit: pedroCarvalho on flickr

Way back in the late seventies I was telling clients that their company culture was important. I didn’t use the term, because it was considered ‘smoke and mirrors’; but culture has always been the deciding factor when a person joins a company or leaves and also the bedrock of innovation and productivity.

From tiny Elk River, MN, where a local president says, “Sportech’s culture is one of the company’s top competitive advantages,” to Canada where “Canada’s most-admired corporate cultures are outperforming the rest — despite the economic downturn” to Internet powerhouses like Amazon and Zappos to Southwest Air Lines all credit their strong performance to their cultures.

Yum Brands is hitting its current marks and laying the foundation for the future with a massive cultural overhaul.

Yum! Brands, the owner of chains such as KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, Dave Novak, the chief executive, is presiding over a training programme that he says is the “biggest culture-change initiative in the world today”, affecting all of the firm’s 1.4m workers spread across 112 countries.

Culture drives the success of the Ritz-Carlton according to its president Simon F. Cooper.

A culture is built on trust. And if leadership doesn’t live the values that it requires of the organization, that is the swiftest way to undermine the culture. No culture sticks if it’s not lived at the highest levels of the organization.

From the start, right along with the marketing and financial plans, Administaff co-founder Paul J. Sarvadi focused on a culture that would empower employees.

…very few people spend the amount of time and effort to develop their people plan,” says Sarvadi, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Administaff Inc. “What’s their people strategy? What is the culture they want in their company? What is their organization and leadership philosophy for the company? How do they want to award people?

Once upon a time Covidien was Tyco Healthcare (yes, that Tyco), a company going no where. It agitated to be spun off, dropped a toxic name, changed its culture and is now a $10 billion 41,000 employee global innovation powerhouse.

Covidien had to make changes to everything from its product development process to its employee evaluation and compensation program.

Whether you’re part of a giant enterprise or an individual out on your own reading stories about how other companies embedded the right combination of hard practices and the right MAP in their culture will show you what to do.

Sure, you’ll have to tweak the idea to fit your needs, but you’ll be surprised how similar the basics are once you strip away the trappings.

Image credit:  MykReeve on flickr

Attention culture mavens. Bob Buderi, Founder, CEO and Editor in Chief of Xconomy, has a great post up comparing Seattle and Boston founders’ one-word descriptions of their cultures.

Here is the lists.

The fact that they look as if the traits were reversed is Bob’s focus (read his post), but ignoring location, let’s consider them based on meaning.

Agreed, one word doesn’t give much leeway, but it is a good indication of a founder’s thoughts, that said, there are some from both coasts that don’t cut it for me in terms of describing a great culture.

Humble and Easy stand out on the western, despite their founders’ explanations, whereas Safety makes sense because it is a pharmaceutical house. Paranoid might turn some people off, but that cultural attitude started at Intel, is still going strong and has served them well.

On the other coast, Cool and Magical don’t make it for me.

What works for you?

Based on this list, in which cultures would you like to work?

Which, based on their chosen word, do you think are most likely to succeed?

Image credit: ckdish on sxc.hu and deboer on sxc.hu

Did you do your homework from Saturday?

I asked you to read Heather Clancy’s take on great culture and said that I’d explain today why I disagree.

The problem I have is with the idea of culture as a cult.

The definition of cult is given as “great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work,” and culture as “set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices;” Heather sees ‘devotion’ and ‘shared’ as interchangeable—and that makes me very uncomfortable.

Another definition for cult is “obsessive, especially faddish, devotion to or veneration for a person, principle, or thing.”

The examples she uses, Apple, Google and Salesforce.com, are superb companies.

But when someone says ‘cult’ to me I think of Jim Jones, whose followers had great devotion, so much that they followed Jones to the death—literally.

Lehman Brothers and other Wall Street banking houses had/have strong cult cultures as does AIG. Their people had great devotion and passion to cultures that were focused on winning no matter what and we all know where that got us. Another enterprise that comes to mind is Enron.

The point I’m making is that cult culture, like most concepts, cuts both ways.

When culture becomes a cult it can lose its flexibility and willingness to grow and change—necessities in today’s fast-changing world.

It’s always tempting to choose examples that highlight the positive view of a business (or any) concept, but it is imperative to avoid assumptions and remember that there are two sides to everything.

Image credit: Gúnna on flickr

Are you familiar with risk culture? You should be, no matter your position in your company.

Risk culture is “defined as the system of values and behaviors present throughout an organization that shape risk decisions. Risk culture influences the decisions of management and employees, even if they are not consciously weighing risks and benefits.

“A company’s risk culture is a critical element that can ensure that “doing the right thing” wins over “doing whatever it takes. … When companies reward reckless conduct, or results gained through any means, the risk management message becomes diluted. … Having a strong risk culture means that employees know what the company stands for, the boundaries within which they can operate, and that they can discuss and debate openly which risks should be taken in order to achieve the company’s long-term strategic goals.”

It takes time, effort, commitment from the top, starting in the board room, and support at every level of management.

Once acceptable risk is decided upon, folded into your culture and communicated it’s most important to use it as a filter in the hiring process.

In fact, the only way to ensure that your corporate culture, risk tolerance, values, etc., continues is to hire people who are, at the very least, synergistic with them.

Read the articles and if you have any questions, or want some help learning to use your culture as a filter, give me a call at 866.265.7267 between 8 am and 11 pm Pacific time or email miki@RampUpSolutions.com. (Calls are better; email can get blocked by filters.)

NO charge—I do it for fun.

Image credit: neuza teixeira on flickr

Alexander Kjerulf over at Chief Happiness Officer shared a fascinating write-up (one of the case studies for his new book) about Wim Roelandts, CEO of Xilinx, managing through his eighth recession. During 2000 recession Wim decided there was a better way than the standard Silicon Valley of repetitive rounds of layoffs—and he proved there was. He called his strategy “Share the pain;” it was completely voluntary and 2799 out of 2800 employees opted to take the graduated pay cuts. He held fast in spite of opposition from both his Board and Wall Street analysts and it worked.

Next is a new book by Dave Hitz who co-founded $3 billion NetApp, number one of Fortune Magazine’s 100 Best Companies To Work For. How To Castrate A Bull & Other Corporate Survival Tips looks like a great read. Enjoy!

Last but certainly not least are two takes on Tony “A company’s culture and a company’s brand are just two sides of the same coin” Hsieh, the guy who built a billion dollar company on its culture. Both are takes on his keynote talk at SXSW 2009, but bring out different points. The one from Fast Company includes seven steps to incorporate Zappos core values into your company; the other is The Onion’s Baratunde Thurston via CNET.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Image credit: flickr