Culture is King: 6 Benefits of Knowing your Business Culture

The secret of success

You don’t become successful and then institute a great culture – the culture has to come first.

Your business culture is at the core of what you do and how you operate. It sets attitudes and expectations. Managed correctly it determines your direction and drives your performance.

What is culture? I’ve heard it defined in two ways:

• The way we do things around here

or

• What happens when you’re not around

What is your culture?

How would you describe your business culture? Is it professional, fun, creative, serious? Is it client focused or team focused?

Many years ago I heard a business consultant talk about identifying your keyword; the one word that sums up your business at its core.

For example, one firm settled on the word friendly.

Once they realised that this was their keyword, and the central tenet of who they were as a company, they noticed that the dark painted walls in their office were not really giving off the friendly vibe; so they re-painted. Clearly it also has major implications for any staff they choose to hire, or clients that they take on. Grumpy people need not apply.

Your 5 core culture values

One aspect of knowing, establishing and reinforcing your culture is the ability to be authentic and consistent in everything that you do. Clearly this has a business benefit.

In every firm that I work with I ask them to identify their five core values. In fact it’s the first task you should do when creating a Business Plan. Why? Because these core values become the bedrock of your business culture and influence everything that you do.

1. Business decisions become easier

When you know your core values you can make all of your business decisions in relation to those values. In fact, after you do this exercise and communicate your values to the rest of the team, they’ll often quote those values back in a difficult situation.

For example, if one of your core values is ‘commerciality’, your team might well bring to your attention the low-paid or unpaid work you do for some clients. Something that perhaps isn’t on your radar.

2. Culture helps with recruitment

This is a fundamental principle that is vital to understand: if your team don’t share and buy into your core values they are not going to fit within your business.

In fact, if you’ve got a team member you are not sure about then try this exercise:

1. List your five core values
2. Put a tick under each value the team member in question exhibits in their behaviour
3. Put a cross if they definately don’t exhibit that behaviour
4. Put a dash if they sometimes do and sometimes don’t

Repeat the exercise for one of your best team members.

As a rule team members that really fit well will tick at least three out of five of your values, and often it’s even higher.

You’ll see the difference. The team members that fit will share your values. If they don’t fit, it won’t work; period. They’ll have to go.

Understanding your core values, and the culture they create, means that in the future you can recruit people with a much more conscious focus on the values they hold. This will improve your recruitment and retention out of sight.

3. Culture means better clients

You can apply the same test to your problem clients. What you’ll find is that often the cause of the tension is a different set of values between you and a challenging client.

This is important, because it allows you to let them go nicely, explaining that all that is going on here is a different world view. No big deal. No one is right or wrong, but this incompatibility is unlikely to help you work well together. Accept it, take action and move on. You won’t believe the improvement to your quality of life as a result.

4. Culture helps maintain standards

Once you have a team around you that share and buy into your values and culture, it becomes a self-selection mechanism for all future team members. If, for some reason a new hire comes on board (after your best recruitment efforts) and they don’t fit your culture, they won’t last five minutes. The existing culture will weed them out very quickly.

When I was an adviser back in Australia, I was fortunate to work with a senior executive at News Corporation. He explained to me that new team members at News Corp stayed for less than two years or they stayed forever. That’s a powerful business culture and self-selection mechanism.

On the positive side, if your existing team refer friends or former colleagues for interview, it’s highly likely they will also share your values. Word of mouth recruitment is a definite plus.

5. Culture precedes positive results

It is for all of the above reasons that culture precedes positive results.

You already have a culture in your business. It exists, even if you haven’t yet defined it.

The important thing is identifying what you have as a culture, and what you would like your culture to be in an ideal world (and these two versions might already be close). This is the best way to take your core values and turn them into a positive, business-enhancing trait.

You’ll notice that a clearly defined set of core values and a strong and healthy business culture is a common trait in all the firms we’ve featured in our Behind The Business series.

6. Tell them, tell them and tell them again

Businesses that want to get more conscious about culture spend time communicating it regularly to everyone within the firm. They do this via a quarterly State of the Nation briefing to the team. Whilst the State of the Nation might update everyone on how the business is performing, it can also be used to tell stories about the core values within the business, and where the owners and managers have noticed them being exhibited. Storytelling is the best way to communicate how your values fit into the day-to-day work that everyone is engaged in.

Culture means clarity

What happens in firms that haven’t defined their culture?

They drift and don’t always know why. Without the clarity of knowing who you are and what you stand for, it can be difficult to make decisions when it comes to your business direction, staff and clients.

Create a business culture by design. Know your core values and live by them.

Culture shouldn’t get tacked on as an afterthought, it should be the core of who you are as a business.

Champions behave like champions before they’re champions – they have a winning standard of performance.

You should too.

“A culture is strong when people work with each other for each other. A culture is weak when people work against each other for themselves.” Simon Sinek

Two great TED talks on creating culture

Why good leaders make you feel safe | Simon Sinek

The puzzle of motivation | Dan Pink

 This article expands on Number 24 in the 26 Standards of Performance for Financial Planning Greatness document I created and shared recently.

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“Champions behave like champions before they’re champions.”

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