What kind of culture does your company embrace? When an organization has a strong culture, it keeps their employees actively and passionately engaged. A strong culture impacts the values and norms of an organization. It creates and supports the mission, vision and values. The type of culture you have influences your financial growth, internal communication, level of risk-taking, and innovation. Your culture determines what your clients expect from you and if you are the type of company they could get along with. A successful company takes more than just great products and a big bank account, a strong culture is also essential.
A lot of companies talk about culture and as Fast Company blogger Shawn Parr puts it, ‘It's one thing to have beliefs and values spelled out in a frame in the conference room. It's another thing to have genuine and memorable beliefs that are directional, alive and modeled throughout the organization daily.’
Your culture has to be yours and you need to be loyal to it. One thing to recognize: it won’t fit everyone. Every person will not fit in every organization. Some organizations are built on plain jane’s and order takers happy to make their to-do list, check it off and go home at night. Others are built on rule breakers and risk-takers who get after it and do whatever it takes the get the job done right and done well. Can you guess which companies grow faster or are more successful long-term?
At Mediaspace Solutions, our culture is spelled out through the acronym AFIRE [Aggressive, Fun, Innovative, Results-driven, Excellence]. But we didn’t just create it, frame it on the wall and forget about it. We live it daily. You can see it through our website and social media. We have a work hard and play hard mentality. When you walk into our office you can see a wall of employee photos that immediately gives you a feel for our individuality and personality. From there you’ll be invited into the pub room. This is where we create our success and then celebrate it while sipping beer from our three taps.
Your culture needs to be evident in everything you do. It starts with hiring great people who fit your culture and then setting them free to meet client needs, develop products and services and deal with the challenges they face, all while your culture emanates from everything they do. We use our culture to guide how we approach everything we do.
Whether they know it or not, our clients hire us because of our culture. They don’t always tell us that’s the reason; but because the way we do business is a reflection of our culture it delivers the results they desire.
It comes down to this: like the great philosopher Bill Cosby once said, ‘I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everybody.’ Identify your core values (real, not imagined), and instill these in your employees. This will lead to your strategies being focused and ultimately, more effective.
What does the culture of your organization promise your clients? Tell us in the comments.
To learn more about the importance of building a strong culture, check out “Culture Eats Strategy For Lunch”
