The concept of corporate culture can be summed up essentially as the spirit of the company. However, many things go into the making of that overall company spirit. Thus, included in the company’s corporate culture is a collection of beliefs and values that all employees identify with, and as such these beliefs and values should ideally be practiced at all levels of the company – from meetings to company outings. Also, quite often the origins of a company’s culture can be traced back to the early days of when and how the company got started. Overall a corporate culture is the mechanism that bonds the company, and is a large factor in determining why people want to work for your company.
Defining Values
As mentioned above, values are a crucial part of what makes up a company’s culture. Values support and shape a company’s identity and its direction. But how can a company’s true core values be identified? One great method of finding out these values is to assemble into a group your company’s top five to ten employees, those who are the best at what they do and are well-respected by others in the company. Once you have this group together, set up a meeting and ask the group to make a list of what they believe the company’s core values are. After they have created this list, ask the group a specific set of five questions that relate to every single core value they listed. So, for example, ask the group if the list of core values they created are considered crucial to them even if they go unrewarded? Next, ask your group if suddenly they had all the money they could ask for, would these core values still be important? Thirdly, question if whether their core values will be considered values in, say, one hundred years from now? The fourth question is if they wish to see the list of core values continue to be supported by the company, even in the worst of financial times? Finally, if the company were to shift into an entirely different form of production, would the group still adopt these values?
Walking The Talk
It is well known that a company that has a strong sense of its own culture will outperform a company which does not adopt a strong culture. This is for a number of reasons, such as the fact that employees who really enjoy working at their company also tend to work hard because they believe in the company. Also, a company known for having a great culture is simply going to attract the top talent. Furthermore, when members of a group share the same values they will tend to bond better and get more done. But how does all of this come to fruition? How are the values that make up the culture implemented in the first place? One strategy is to be sure you have made your set of core values crystal clear to all employees. One way to do this is to create a list though the above mentioned method of creating a group and asking them the 5 questions. Another strategy is to make sure you hire employees that share your belief in your core values. It’s one thing for your employees to know what the values are, but to share them and make them a reality in the employees’ daily behavior is a sign of a strong culture. Additionally, you can implement your core values through the creation of a set of company rituals, all of which support your core values in some way. For instance, the companies of 3-M and Google are known for always rewarding their employees who take the initiative to work on projects outside the scope of their regular job duties. These companies value creativity and innovation, and so without supporting those strong values in their companies, we would never have inventions such as the Post-it Note and Gmail! One other great tip to have your core values reinforced is make sure your top players in the company are modeling the values for all else to see. Hypocrisy is a sure way to squash any budding culture.
Case Study: Google vs. Apple
In the world of technology, two monster corporations, Google and Apple, while both producing the same end products, are two companies with completely separate corporate cultures. Despite their disparate cultures, both companies are hugely successful not just at making money, but by hiring and retaining dedicated employees. Both companies reached this point by sticking to strong core values. Thus, for Google, the strong and sometimes wholly emphasis on data has been the driving force behind their innovative technology. So within the company, it is the engineers who are at the top of the food chain, and most respected. Brains are revered at Google, and it is this stress on an academic environment that has kept the core value that data in technology trumps all else alive and healthy in the company. At the other end is Apple. Rather than relying on data as its motivation for innovation, Apple has at its most core value the belief that design is king. In fact, it was former Apple owner, Steve Jobs, who once stated that Apple’s purpose is to put out a well-designed, easy to use product that doesn’t cost a whole lot. So it is design perfection that drives all of Apple’s products, not data perfection. Yet despite such vast differences in each company’s philosophical direction, both are side-by-side in technology innovation, all stemming from both companies strongly emphasizing their own unique core values.
