What impact does your 'corporate culture' have on your business goals?

Posted on February 24, 2015 by Maria Deotto, One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.

What does your organization stand for? What would your employees say about the general atmosphere in head office? In divisional offices? Out on the field? What are your customers saying about you? How do you handle difficult situations with employees? How do you handle complaints from customers? What does your community say about you?

These are all very thought provoking questions for all leaders, yet often times, when asked about corporate culture, many would say that it seems to happen organically and without much effort. Yet everywhere I turn, I read yet another research study that explains the significant impact that corporate culture has on a business’s bottom line. It can be a significant negative impact, when you pay little attention to culture or a significant positive impact, when you ensure that at the organization’s foundation, is a well articulated and defined positive corporate culture.

The research shows, pay significant attention to this or fail – guaranteed!

In a recent Deloitte research study, they define an impactful, meaningful and positive corporate culture as a ‘culture of purpose’. Much like Daniel Pink described the changing values that are driving motivation today as being “autonomy, mastery and purpose”; a culture of purpose for an organization is the key driver to success. This culture of purpose has a significant influence on financial performance and “91% of the leaders interviewed said that the organizations that had a strong sense of purpose, have also shown strong financial performance”.

A culture of purpose ensures that management and employees alike sustain themselves by generating significant, positive impact for everyone their operations touch. They are keenly aware of the purpose they fulfill for clients, employees, community, and other groups — and they integrate goals to serve those groups into their business’ core activities.

Even when the people change and the products produced by the organization are re-invented and evolve, the company’s culture emerges and is maintained. One of the key factors that define a ‘culture of purpose’ is one where the organization’s committed to and has a focus on innovation and staying ahead of the curve, encouraging bravery and risk taking amongst all employees.

The key is to align your mission and purpose, to the execution. It’s that old adage ‘walk the talk’ which when it comes to ‘purpose’ is also especially important to attracting and retaining Millennials, who are particularly motivated by this concept of purpose and generally skeptical of business.

But it’s not enough to articulate this culture; it must be integrated and become part of the business’s overall strategy. Remember, you are broadcasting your culture all the time and people are listening.

Fundamentally, your culture is broadcast through a number of channels, some that are obvious and others that are not. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Culture comes from the top, handed down from management to new employees
Internal promotions, the quantity and quality of these promotions will either align with or deviate from your culture
Your culture will be impacted by and align with your core values which are inherited when people and products change
Culture doesn’t stop at the management level and is lived every day by each member of the company
Someone breaking the “culture” has to be dealt with quickly
Culture is forever
The stronger the culture, the less the organization requires corporate processes because employees can be more independent and empowered within their position to take decisions on behalf of the company. Employees are trusted
Weaker cultures require more process and policies
So, looking at your corporate culture, what is your purpose?