CASHING IN ON YOUR CORPORATE CULTURE
By Cindy Gordon CA CPCC

Everyday your culture impacts your actions, thoughts, successes and failures.  Your culture represents the beliefs, behaviours and attitudes that you consciously live by.  Parents work to instill certain values and beliefs in their children.  As one matures, he learns more and more about himself.  His life experiences and the norms and standards of society alter and refine his personal culture.  Sometimes societal norms and standards play a larger role in the development of his culture than he realizes.

Corporations, like people, have their own unique culture.  Commonly, the culture of an owner-managed company would significantly resemble the culture of the owner - whether good or bad.  In larger organizations, there is a diverse and sometimes conflicting culture that runs through it due to the different characters making up the management team.  As well, the corporate culture can be influenced by experiences and society - both positively and negatively, and sometimes unbeknownst to the management team.  In any type of organization, a poor culture can lead to staff disengagement and customer dissatisfaction - two criteria that significantly impact the profitability of an organization. 

By defining the corporate culture, management becomes accountable to the members of the corporation and the public to ensure their actions, strategies and business decisions support their intention.  Corporate culture points directly to the strength of the leadership of the organization. 

Both personal and corporate culture are comprised of three main components:

1. Vision
2. Values
3. Leadership branding

Vision
A vision is commonly presented in a corporate mission or vision statement.  The corporate vision represents the foundation and focus of a business.  It is an articulation of what the company's purpose is -beyond making money.  It embodies the essence of what compels the company to thrive.

The development of a corporate mission or vision has become mainstream in the business world.  It is commonly used as a marketing tool to inform the public about the company.  Where management commonly fails to get the real benefit from this powerful form of communication is by:

• Limiting its potential - when used as a marketing tool the words are developed to sell the product or service of the organization.  It misses out on the potential to compel people to deal with the organization as a customer or an employee.  When your statement is compelling, it draws a larger and more diverse audience and keeps them captivated with the company.
  
•  Not communicating the vision to their staff.  The staff may take time to read the words of the statement, but they are not attuned to the feeling or passion that has motivated management to write these words.
   
• Not aligning the staff's personal culture (i.e. what personally compels them) to that of the company's.  There is a lost opportunity to show the employees how their job can bring personal fulfillment, bringing them to a higher level of commitment to the company.
   
• Posting the vision on their website and forgetting about it.  To gain the full benefit of the corporate vision, management must embody the words and use it as the basis for strategic planning and day-to-day decision-making.  When clients see that the company's representatives don't live up to the expectations, they become disenchanted and there is a risk of them finding another supplier.

Through its established culture, Southwest Airlines has experienced soaring profitability and high levels of staff and customer engagement.

"The mission of Southwest Airlines is dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit."

After 9/11, many travellers wanted to cancel or change their travel arrangements on pre-purchased tickets.  While many airlines were charging fees to make these changes, the management of Southwest Airlines looked to their mission statement for direction.  Their decision to not charge passengers for any changes or cancellation and offer full refunds if requested fully supported their culture of providing "the highest quality of Customer Service".  While some passengers did request refunds, most did not.  As a result of their actions, Southwest Airlines did more than survive one of the most challenging times for the travel industry.  To this day, Southwest Airlines is known for its strong sense of Customer Service.

Powerful leaders throughout time have developed a vision that benefits not only themselves, but others as well.  It is this type of vision that attracts others and makes them willing to work beyond the call of duty for that leader.

Values

Your values reflect the essence of who you are and what strongly enriches your life.  Values come from the core of a person.  When you live your life in honour of your values, your life is meaningful and rich.  If you were to think of a memorable time in your life - an experience that brought out your extreme feelings, for example, the birth of a child, an exciting holiday, helping someone in need, what makes the event memorable is that somehow it activated an important value within you.  Living your life honouring your values is what makes you jump out of bed everyday excited to start your day.

Values play a large role in the development of a strong business culture.  The corporate values provide the essence of how each employee is called upon to represent the organization.  When management spends time defining, discussing and acknowledging the corporate values, the behaviours and expectations of staff become clear and consistent.   This leads to improved staff engagement and better-serviced clients.  These factors have a significant impact on the corporation's profitability.

Once the leaders have identified and defined the corporate values, it is vital to help the staff discover how their personal values are validated when they perform their job in accordance to the corporate values.  This alignment will make personal and corporate values increase staff engagement.  Therefore, the employee gains more fulfilment from their job and is motivated to work harder, bringing their best to their work.  

Corporate values greatly facilitate the recruiting process.  Recruiters commonly look for a person who has the skills to perform a specific task.  The human resource team use various skills to get a sense of how well the candidate can handle the responsibilities of the job, and how they would fit into the organization.  In corporations where values are part of the corporate culture, the recruiting process takes on a new life.  The process becomes one of uncovering the candidate's values and assessing how aligned they are with those of the corporation.  There is no second-guessing.  Using corporate values in the recruiting process can reduce recruiting time and costs.  But best of all, it can increase the likelihood the new recruit will fit well into the organization and will stay with the company for a long time. 

Leadership Branding

Branding is used by companies to establish an identity for their products or services.  Product branding focuses on how the product makes customers feel.

A leadership brand represents the identity and reputation of leaders throughout the company.  A leadership brand exists when leaders at all levels of an organization demonstrate consistent reactions to issues and strategies within the company.  Successful leaders tie their brand identity to the changing expectations of customers, staff and stakeholders.

Firms with branded leadership enroll their customers through consistent and appropriate methods of meeting their needs.  Customers develop a knowing of what to expect from the organization's representatives because their actions are congruent with the corporate values and vision.

The benefit of leadership branding also extends to the employees.  When a consistent and effective leadership brand exists in an organization, employees know what to expect.  This greatly enhances motivation and minimizes staff turnover.

Leadership branding is a valuable tool for organizations of all sizes.  Even in an owner managed company, the development of a leadership brand can result in consistently dealing with issues in a way that alleviates their burden, allowing the owner more time to grow and develop his business.

Research has shown and experience has confirmed that organizations with a corporate culture comprising of a compelling vision, values aligned to all employees and a strong leadership brand can achieve higher profitability than organizations without.  As a leader of a business, it is important to use your leadership skills to impact people.  By enrolling staff, clients and potential clients into the vision of the organization and connecting to their personal values, the company is transformed from a tool for making profits into a creative, humane experiment for improving life.

Cindy Gordon CA CPCC is a Chartered Accountant and a Certified Co-Active Coach.  She works with her clients to inspire awareness, communication and expression of one's authentic being through the defining of their personal or corporate culture.  Cindy can be contacted by e-mail at cgordon@cultureshockcoaching.com or by phone at 647-221-1432