Achieving higher results through sustaining employees' focus on what to do and how to do it.

"No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive." – Mahatma Gandhi

Showcase: General Electric (GE)

As far as Jack Welch, the legendary former CEO of GE, is concerned, middle managers have to be team members and coaches. "They have to facilitate more than control. They should be able to excite and praise people and know when to celebrate. Managers should be energizers, not enervators." In the company's 1993 Annual Report, Welch noted, "To be blunt, the two quickest ways to part company with GE are, one, to commit an integrity violation, or, two, to be controlling, turf-defending oppressive manager who can't change and who saps and squeezes people rather than excites and draws out their energy and creativity."

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Winning business organization: General Electric

Today General Electric (GE) succeeds in dozens of diverse businesses and is continuously at the vanguard of change. Some years ago however, in locations throughout GE, local managers were operating in an insulated environment with walls separating them, both horizontally and vertically, from other departments and their workforce. Employee questions, initiatives, and feedback were discouraged.

Determined to harness the collective power of GE employees, create a free flow of ideas, and redefine relationships between boss and subordinates, Jack Welch, the former legendary CEO of GE, created a new corporate culture. It's key elements are:

Redesigning the role of the leader in the new economy: creating followers through communicating a vision, and establishing open, caring relations with every employee.
Creating an open, collaborative workplace where everyone's opinion is welcome.
Empowering senior executives to run far-flung businesses in entrepreneurial fashion.
Liberating the workforce; making everybody a participant through improving vertical communication and employee empowerment.

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Synergy showcase: General Electric

At General Electric (GE) the sum is greater than its parts as both business and people diversity is utilized in a most effective way. A major American enterprise with a diverse group of huge businesses, GE is steeped in a learning culture and it is this fact that makes GE a unique company.

As Jack Welch puts it: "What sets GE apart is a culture that uses diversity as a limitless source of learning opportunities, a storehouse of ideas whose breadth and richness is unmatched in world business. At the heart of this culture is an understanding that an organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive business advantage."

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What is corporate culture?

Corporate culture refers to your organization's values, beliefs, and acceptable behaviors. It encompasses moral, social, and behavioral norms of your organization based on the values, beliefs, attitudes, and priorities of its members.

In general, corporate culture is concerned with beliefs and values on the basis of which people interpret experiences and behave, individually and in groups. Cultural statements become operationalized when executives articulate and publish the values of their firm which provide patterns for how employees should behave. Firms with strong cultures achieve higher results because employees sustain focus both on what to do and how to do it.

Adaptive cultures

Your corporate culture is good only if it fits its context, i.e. your business space and your business strategy. In today's rapidly changing economy, only cultures that can help organizations anticipate and adapt to environmental change will be associated with superior performance over the long time. Research findings show that cultures that are externally oriented (e.g. risk taking, readiness to meet new challenges) tend to be more strongly associated with organizational performance (operationalized using a range of measures) than do those cultures which are bureaucratic and predominantly internally focused.

Competitive culture

Based on 'The Art of War' by Sun Tzu, app. 500 B.C.

Competitive philosophy is described by Sun Tzu as "The Way" or "The Path." In business, it is called "corporate culture" or, as an focus, the "company mission." Your core as competitor is your competitive philosophy. A clear philosophy makes decision-making easier. Philosophy guides everything else you do in competition. Nothing is as important as having the right way of thinking. A competitor with a strong philosophy is a strong competitor. Understanding your competitor's philosophy allows you to predict them.

Sun Tzu's two main issues regarding competitive philosophy are:

A Philosophy of People: Your philosophy must be people centered. Your goal must be to serve the needs of people. Every competitor's strength depends on the support of people.
Unity and Focus: Your philosophy is the source of your competitive focus and unity. Philosophy brings people together, uniting them into an effective group. Philosophy also provides your focus that tells you what is important now. Having people united and focused is the source of all strength.

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Coaching culture

Coaching helps individuals (and, thus, organizations) juggle their many responsibilities and ultimately achieve success overall.

British organizational development experts David Clutterback and David Megginson recent researched the theory and reality of changing to a coaching culture. They define a coaching culture as one in which the predominant style is managing and working together, and where a commitment to grow the organization is embedded in a parallel commitment to grow the people in the organization.

Quality culture

Quality management is the culture of an organization committed to customer satisfaction through continuous improvement. In particular, with Total Quality Management (TQM) quality is not the product but the process. To institute the process, corporate trainers must bring about a cultural transformation wherein all employees shed their individualism for a unified set of corporate values.

Corporate culture: Hewlett-Packard

In most companies, corporate culture is created unconsciously, based on the values of the top management or the founders of an organization. Hewlett-Packard is a company that has, for a long time, been conscious of its culture (The HP Way) and has worked hard to maintain it over the years. Hewlett-Packard's corporate culture is based on:

respect for others;
a sense of community;
plain hard work.

It has been developed and maintained through extensive training of managers and employees. HP's growth and success over the years has been due in large part to its culture.

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Corporate culture: Dell Computer Corporation

"I wish it were possible for me to interact with everyone at Dell as I used to. But it's not possible to scale the number of interactions to be consistent with the growth of the company", says Michael Dell6, Chairman and CEO of the Dell Computer Corporation. "We've found there are, however things you can do to bridge the distance between you and your people in a larger organization, and develop the fast-paced, flexible culture that's a source of competitive advantage.

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Corporate culture: Toyota

The spiritual center of Toyota is Toyota City, a huge company town of 400,000 people outside the industrial city of Nagoya. In 2005, Toyota employees from around the globe come to the company's Toyota City plant near Nagoya, Japan for indoctrination in the "Toyota Way." The company's commitment to teamwork is exemplified on the factory floor, where workers grab parts from trolleys that move with the line, one of many timesaving innovations proposed by the workers themselves. Slogans written by employees hang from the ceiling, and each production team has its own melody that rings out when a member needs to catch management's attention. Toyota's devotion to "Kaizen," or continuous improvement, shows up throughout the company and is a lesson that will serve all managers.

Toyota’s global competitive advantage is based on a corporate philosophy known as the Toyota Production System. Toyota's philosophy of empowering its workers is the centrepiece of a human resources management system that fosters creativity, continuous improvement, and innovation by encouraging employee participation, and that likewise engenders high levels of employee loyalty.

Corporate culture: SynerGenics

Adapted from "Who Are We?" by Alise Lynn Booth

Burson-Marsteller, a world's largest public relations agency, created a company called "SynerGenics" that not only helps a company define its corporate culture but rolls up its sleeves with the company's executives to help them implement an "employee involvement" program.

Geoffrey Nightingale, creator of B-M's highly successful Creative Services Department, looked into how to make a company "values-driven." Working with a psychologist/management expert, Nightingale researched the question for two years. He concluded that employees of a values-driven company understand the company's vision and values clearly and feel a "market affiliation." The result is a company where all employees feel "a sense of wholeness." The employees feel that they own the company.

"One reason we differ from the traditional management consultant is our own emphasis on market-driven communications," said Nightingale. "Market affiliation means a sense of kinship between employees at all levels and the marketplace... The central problem in employee involvement is communication. When top management says to us, `We want a company that behaves differently,' we know the solution lies with communications."

The "SynerGenics" program, used by such corporations as Gillette Corp., Signode Industries, Flying Tigers, and Digital Equipment, begins with the Market Affiliation Climate Study (MACS), a four-to six week process that reaches employees at all levels of the client company, as well as key customers, with interviews, questionnaires, and focus groups. During the SWOT analysis phase, MACS reveals where the organization has strengths, weaknesses, and barriers in ten key areas. Then SynerGenics designs a program to keep the strengths and eliminate the barriers and weaknesses.

SynerGenics taps all of Burson-Marsteller's resources and hires industrial trainers and employee- relations experts. Together they develop and implement programs to drive the vision through the organization and make each employee feel that "he owns the store." They get a response all the way down the line. This this process is the most important part of the program. Burson-Marsteller creates posters, videos, exhibits, and other visual aides. Experts in team building and conflict resolution are also brought in when the situation calls for such remedies.

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Corporate culture: Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines expends a lot of energy in maintaining its workplace culture. It has a good reputation as an employer.

The Mission of Southwest Airlines
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.

To Our Employees
We are committed to provide our Employees a stable work environment with equal opportunity for learning and personal growth. Creativity and innovation are encouraged for improving the effectiveness of Southwest Airlines. Above all, Employees will be provided the same concern, respect, and caring attitude within the organization that they are expected to share externally with every Southwest Customer.

Herb Kelleher, former Southwest's CEO, indicated how Southwest maintained its culture:

"Well, first of all, it starts with hiring. We are zealous about hiring. We are looking for a particular type of person, regardless of which job category it is. We are looking for attitudes that are positive and for people who can lend themselves to causes. We want folks who have a good sense of humor and people who are interested in performing as a team and take joy in team results instead of individual accomplishments."

"If you start with the type of person you want to hire, presumably you can build a work force that is prepared for the culture you desire."

"Another important thing is to spend a lot of time with your people and to communicate with them in a variety of ways. And a large part of it is demeanor. Sometimes we tend to lose sight of the fact that demeanor – the way you appear and the way you act – is a form of communication. We want our people to feel fulfilled and to be happy, and we want our management to radiate the demeanor that we are proud of our people, we are interested in them as individuals and we are interested in them outside the work force, including the good and bad things that happen to them as individuals."

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Topics related to "Corporate culture"

Corporate culture as a fundamental competitive advantage

The strength of your organization's culture is one of the most fundamental competitive advantages. If you can build and preserve an innovation-adept culture, a culture of commitment, one where employees passionately pursue your organization's cause and mission, you will be better positioned for success.

Building and transforming corporate culture

In six words, corporate culture is "How we do things around here."

Corporate culture is the collective behavior of people using common corporate vision, goals, shared values, beliefs, habits, working language, systems, and symbols. It is interwoven with processes, technologies, learning and significant events. Cultural statements become operationalized when executives articulate and publish the values of their firm which provide patterns for how employees should behave. Firms with strong cultures achieve higher results because employees sustain focus both on what to do and how to do it.

Corporate culture can be transformed, but leadership to sustain anything that sweeping has to come from the top.