Successful Corporate Culture

Corporate culture is the sum aggregate of the beliefs and behaviour that determines how a company’s employees and management interact and handle business transactions and interaction with internal and external customers.  Often, corporate culture is implied, not expressly defined, and develops organically over time from the cumulative traits of the people the company hires.  In an age of activist investors and consumers, that is no longer acceptable, since it is considered risky behaviour. 

We build brands defined by a company’s mission and values.  This is ultimately corporate culture, since it is the mission and values that are meant to shape behaviour.  Sometimes, this may not be the mission espoused publicly, but the values cultivated internally, which may be at odds with the stated mission and vision.  Whatever brand we build must be aligned with the corporate culture.  That is an ideal.  In truth corporate culture is amorphous and living.  It evolves according to the prevailing behaviour encouraged within a company.  Brands have guidelines, specific representations, and compliance requirements for us.  We cannot apply this to corporate culture in the same manner, although we need to have some firm ethical guidelines, and emphasised values. 

In essence, a company whose culture is defined well, and articulated explicitly, for both internal and external stakeholders, such that they understand its mission and values, and how it impacts them positively, has successfully defined its corporate culture.  If the stakeholders do not understand, or worse, misunderstand, corporate culture, they do not understand their correct role in it.  The company has failed. 

Just as a company has specific guidelines for the use of all collaterals, from the logo, to the preferred colours, to the exact spacing and size of the typeface, so that everyone, from staff to vendors can consistently co-brand, corporate culture needs a similar level of articulation.  This is brought across in the form of shared values, a defined purpose, and a formalised mission, which clearly outline decision criteria, team dynamics, and stakeholder engagements to achieve the objectives of this corporate culture.  One of the considerations in drafting mission and values is that while we want to be inclusive, and embrace some form of diversity, they should not be so generic that they apply to everyone.  There has to be something that is specific to the company so that a unique corporate culture can evolve.  People want to feel they are part of something exclusive and special. 

Creating corporate culture is like creating a garden.  On one hand, it must look natural, but it is also carefully sculpted.  Corporate culture does not happen by accident, nor should be allowed to grow without careful direction.  Corporate culture must be nurtured.  The values have to be assessed in context of changes in wider society, and articulated and rearticulated explicitly, such that it is immediately apparent when a member of the team, an employee, or any other stakeholder, is not aligned with the value of corporate culture.  An alignment with corporate culture is now measureable, making it enforceable.  There should be a series of actions that can be taken by Human Resources, or relevant management, within the company to address this off-brand behaviour, before it leads to unacceptable consequences.  There is no compromise in values, since this is the ethical DNA of the company. 

The values of corporate culture must be epitomised at top management, and demonstrated at every level of leadership.  People follow behaviour; they are not told behaviour.  The mission and values of the company must be relatable to all stakeholders, and lived.  It must also be presented in employee orientation, from the start of the hiring process.  It must be a weighted consideration in promotion.  It must be values people can align with, and made actionable in replicable steps for the individual. 

A successful corporate culture is one where everybody knows the company values, and where customers associate the brand with causes, all aligned with the mission of the company.  This creates a basis for employee loyalty to the company, and customer loyalty to the brand.