Corporate culture and leadership are essential in the New Economy. Why? Because in turbulent times it’s imperative that organizations have a clear sense of direction and purpose. Not having everyone on the same page results in chronic organizational dysfunction
where employees and departments are working at cross purposes by pursuing conflicting goals. Remember every misalignment squanders your company’s ITEAM *(Information, Time, Energy, Attention and Motivation) and drains your profits. (*Mike Jay, B-Coach)
Many companies may have a written mission, vision and values statement but most fail to formally develop their cultures. Because leaders put off the heavy work of erecting the scaffolding of values, policies, shared beliefs, rewards, rituals, and visual elements that form culture, a void is created. In that void, culture happens spontaneously, organically and usually chaotically. Culture becomes an aggregation of random decisions made by different people in particular circumstances. The notion is that if the people are good, decent and competent, chances are, the culture be good, decent and competent as well. This approach is a recipe for disaster. As the leader your biggest responsibility is creating a culture that is scalable and sustainable. With or without direction nature and nurture will combine to form organizational DNA that informs your people of “how we do things”. This message grows more visible and pervasive over time.
Many successful entrepreneurs aren’t content to leave their corporate culture and leadership to chance. From the beginning they select people, implement policies and clarify what’s important at every step of the way. Because they want a culture that can sustain itself these leaders believe in culture by design.
“If you don’t define the culture and you don’t work on it and you don’t progress it even when it’s 2-3 people, it’ll define itself. And it’ll define itself really quick, and it may not be the one that you like.” -Matthew Porter, CEO Contegix
Large organizations with well-developed cultures often neglect them resulting in the culture changing into something at odds with the organization’s vision and stated values.
A good example of corporate culture and leadership that went awry is AIG. According to Corporate Culture: The Ultimate Strategic Asset*, AIG’s failure during the global financial crisis of 2008-09 in part can be attributed to misaligned values and a changed culture. AIG had as a core competency managing risks and a culture where anyone could challenge a trade. Under Joseph Cassano, the financial products group sold hundreds of billions of credit protection in the form of CDs without having to put up any real money as collateral. As sales grew the group took on more and more risk. Under Cassano’s leadership the culture evolved into one in which transactions couldn’t be criticized. When, in the financial crisis of 2008, investment banks sought insurance money for their collapsing derivatives, AIG could not deliver and received a bail-out from the taxpayers. A culture of growth at any cost overshadowed the old culture of managing risk and the rest as they say is history. (*Corporate Culture: The Ultimate Strategic Asset, Eric Flamholtz and Yvinne Randle,Stanford University Press 2011)
Many successful organizations like FedEx, IBM, Amgen and Disney have “woken up” to find that their corporate culture and leadership weren’t aligned with their vision. This “Ah Ha moment” forced leaders to impose a cultural re-alignment. This was a painful process (IBM laid off 60% of its workforce).
When you look at your company’s corporate culture and leadership what do you see? Are your company’s Culture, Mission, Vision and Values aligned so everybody in the organization understands and acts congruently with them? Take the Growth Positioning Survey and discover where your company stands.