Does your business have the culture you want?
I have worked at and with a wide assortment of companies over the course of my career: large, small, privately held, publicly traded, family owned, partnerships, single member LLC. Each organization is unique in its culture. The products or service can look the same, but how it is experienced is extremely different. Whether the culture of the company is what the leaders want or not depends on how deliberate the leaders are about culture.
When I talk with many business owners, they tell me they started their business to build a company they want to work for. They describe a company culture that is their ideal and reflective of their values. When asked what they have done or are currently doing to build and maintain that culture, the answer is frequently nothing.
Every company has a culture. Culture permeates everything the company does. It is how your business is experienced by employees, customers, and other stakeholders like vendors and partners. If they interact with your business, they experience your culture. Culture is not a right or wrong thing. It is a company specific experience. Whether the culture at your organization creates the experience you want is driven by how intentional you are about building it.
As you look around at your business and the different ways people experience and interact with it, are you happy with the culture you see and feel? If not, then it is time to take action and move your organization in the direction you want it to go. Here are four steps to get you started:
Observe your organization and team over a couple weeks. Write down what you liked and appreciated about their behavior and interactions with each other, customers, and stakeholders. Write out the behaviors and actions that do not align with your desired culture.
If you have core values for your business, align the desired behaviors with specific value(s).
Create a plan for reinforcing the behaviors and actions you want to see more of and become core to your organization. This includes recognizing individuals, in the moment, for exhibiting elements of the culture you want to see.
Communicate with your team the culture you want to build. Provide examples of where you have seen the culture in action. Share with the team how those behaviors align with the company’s core values. Provide your reasons for why you want the culture to be what you envision and how that will impact them, your customers, and stakeholders. Let them know how you plan to recognize them for exhibiting the culture and values you know are key to building the business you want.
Shifting a culture is not a one-week effort. It will take weeks and months to shift the organization and continual effort over the life of the business to keep the culture where you want it to be. It will take work and deliberate action, but ultimately you will find yourself running a business that you would want to work at.