Recently, I spent a day with the president and CEO of a large and complex service organization. He was very open and candid with me regarding his challenges and concerns, and was interested in ways to inspire his employees.

His board of directors, although quite pleased with his performance and overall leadership, encouraged him to find ways to improve employee productivity and of course, profits. All of this is pretty familiar, no doubt.

The company has a mission statement that addresses its external customer, as well as overall goals and objectives for the top management. But, it does not have a compelling vision statement.

When I questioned the CEO if employees throughout his organization were aware of the overall vision of the company, his reply was “I am not sure.” What would your answer be?

My follow-up question was: “Can you please describe the company culture?” His response was, “We value excellence in customer service, integrity and creating value.”

Once more I probed, as to whether or not the entire organization had knowledge of the culture values and if there was employee buy-in? At this point, I could tell by the troubled look on the CEO’s face, the employee involvement in living and driving the culture he transcribes to was a huge issue. We spent the next four hours discussing the key elements and importance of company culture.

The essence of culture is a firm’s values and guiding principles. It is the heart of the company. Culture is a balanced, blending of human psychology, traits, norms, attitudes, beliefs and actions.

Culture can create motivation, momentum, energy, enthusiasm or inflict pain and stagnation and increase turnover.

Culture is much more than a nice thing to talk about. The true bottom line in organizations is this: Do employees understand and support a culture that gives them purpose and passion?

Culture taps into your employees’ desire to put the past behind them and use their collective creativity and wisdom. Culture is indeed viral. It is passed from one person to another.

Leaders that grasp the significance of the power of positive culture put the “cult” in culture. Leaders set the cultural tone. It is in their DNA.

The facts are, when employees are emotionally vested in the mission and vision of the business, they work harder to see it succeed they become an integral part of something rather than a disposable piece. As a result, they pull together in good times and in bad times and support each other.

Company culture emanates from the top. It is a clear reflection of strategic decisions, leadership, actions and behavior and communication style. In many respects, culture is your company brand. The culture you nourish needs to be intentional and cared for each day.

Effective leaders create interdependent culture to support the strategic culture objective. They view company culture as the soul of the organization. A heady goal of company culture is to enrich the lives of its employees and to implement business practices that develop a seamless relationship with customers.

Culture is like faith – people believe in it and live it! An empowering company culture puts a premium on its employees and values them. One of the culture’s cornerstones is the development of its employees. In order to maximize their talents and aspirations that benefit them and the organization. Culture should not be viewed as a nice “soft” thing to share with the organization. It is the engine that drives results.

A business that creates and sustains a culture of mutual openness and trust is leaps and bounds ahead of its competition. Your company’s culture is unique and thus difficult for your competitors to copy in so many ways:

• It is a competitive advantage – think of Starbucks

• It determines how things get done and how your customers are treated

• It influences employees’ behavior and performance

• It can be a source of positive energy, productivity and passion

• Align your company culture with your strategic goals

• Leverage the good things in your current culture

 

• Be keenly aware that culture guides discretionary behavior, and picks up where the employee handbook leaves off.

 

Perhaps it is time to appoint or hire a chief culture officer. Make sure that each employee can put into words the company culture.

 

Remember: Culture trumps strategy every day of the week!

 

PS:  The CEO just appointed a chief culture officer.