Building a great company culture is a significant Strategic Advantage. Competitors can steal your ideas, technology and copy systems or the way you do business but they cannot steal your culture. Further if you have culture that your people love then your competitors cannot steal your people either.
I am often asked “How do we build a culture?’. There is no easy answer except to say it is a conscious decision, it is a process that is continually worked on, it is planned, it involves heavily the desires & input of those in your team. Leaders plan for and enable the culture by making it a priority and something they protect and actively encourage and grow. Your people are the culture so they have to buy in and be part of it.
I am lucky enough to work with clients who are iconic NZ brands, clients who are in the top 10 places to work in the country (year in year out) and many who have workplaces full of committed, highly engaged people.
What do they all have in common? Culture is a big part of their Strategy, they commit time and resources to it and they live and breathe it. They have fun, they work hard and they have very high levels of accountability. Their team helps deal with those who don’t fit or don’t perform.
Culture brings a common language and set of beliefs (values and purpose) to a group of people.
Click on this photo to link & hear John Spence talk about the “Elements of a Winning Culture”.
Culture absolutely eats strategy for breakfast. It is a strategy!
Leading from the front 