Why is Culture Important?

 

Culture is vitally important to companies, but I suspect that many do not realize just how important it actually is.

Let’s first establish what culture is. When a discussion of corporate culture first begins, it is not uncommon to think of national cultures like French, Japanese, or Hawaiian. This is a great place to start since corporate cultures have the same characteristics as national cultures.

For example, if we were talking about French cooking, we could describe it as part of French culture. Their style of cooking is “the way the French do it.” We can pick any aspect of life such as doing business, holiday traditions, daily routines, and so forth and simply say, “That is how they do that particular activity. It is part of their culture.”

If we shift our focus from national cultures to corporate cultures, we find the same thing. A corporate culture is the way a particular company does things.

Culture is the actions and behaviors that an organization deems appropriate.

 

A corporate culture is expressed and observed in the way employees engage relationships inside and outside the company and in the way they engage productivity, meaning the way they do their jobs.

Now let’s talk about what a culture does in a company.

At its most fundamental level, the culture influences the thousands of decisions employees make every day. Employees will be trained in the tasks of their jobs and they may receive various assignments with instructions from their managers, but this direction gives guidance to only a small fraction of the choices and decisions they will make throughout their day. Culture influences and guides the rest of their choices and decisions. To that end, a company will publish mission, vision, and value statements. These are components of their culture.

Since culture is influencing decision making, then culture also:

• Influences how your customers and partners view your company and interact with it
• Directly determines your level of productivity
• Impacts the decisions about the products you build and offer
• Impacts the way your employees interpret data (Market, Sales, Customer, etc.)
• Directly determines the level of trust and loyalty within the organization
• Determines how creative an organization is because creativity is a function of trust
• Influences turnover

These are just seven of many very important things that culture influences or directly determines. From this list, you can see that it has a direct impact on the level of financial success a company experiences.

A culture has momentum. When that momentum is aligned with company goals and objectives, the culture enhances the motivation force already found in the company. The two complement each other.

A culture is dynamic. This is what allows it to be directed and guided. The shaping influence can come from the company or from external forces. If company leadership is not constantly vigilant, then someone or something else will start guiding it. Once cultural momentum and company objectives become misaligned, then the culture actually starts working against the company. The greater the misalignment, the more expensive it becomes to the company.

This is why culture is so important to companies.

Your culture is either working for you or against you. Let us help you ensure that it is working for you.