Oxford Languages defines culture as "the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society".
Culture can thus help define the recognised identity and performance of a business because a business effectively comprises a group of people sharing common space, benefits and goals, not unlike a "society" in the definition above.
What kind of culture a business wants to or does foster within its ranks can, however, depend upon the business in question.
Often a culture within a business emerges organically, guided in large measure by the approach of, and example set by, its own management.
This can be a good thing or a bad thing. An aggressive culture resulting which focuses on self preservation is unlikely to result in positive staff morale and performance. But one which promotes shared accountability and compromise might well do so.
If a culture has taken root this way and is predominately negative, it may be that the best course of action is to take whatever small positives there are from it but otherwise move forward afresh, a topic we cover within a personal context in our post entitled "Let go of the Past & Create a New Living Legacy to Stressbust™".
If, by chance, a constructive culture has emerged but it does not quite represent what is sought, then the desirable aspects of this should arguably be incorporated into a gradual cultural realignment to secure a degree of culture continuity as opposed to a total change overnight.
But the question amidst all this is - why, when culture is so important, should it be left to chance in the first place?!
Instead, a business at every stage of its evolution should be revisiting and reviewing its culture to ensure it continues to reflect the values and objectives of the business, not merely for the internal purpose of eg deveoping a non intimidating, inclusive environment but because of the message it sends to the outside market at large with whom the business and its staff interact continually. We deal with the similar importance of such matters to a home scenario in our posts entitled "Give your Home an Identity that helps you StressBust™", "10 Stressbusting™ Themes for Decorating to Innovate & Inspire" and "Design a Stressbusting™ Family Crest".
For this reason, culture can ally closely with a business's brand. In fact, culture might not only be reflected in the front facing business brand, but may be so important as to inform the very decisions that are taken in determining the business brand itself.
An excellent example of this is a company which a few years back commissioned an internal cultural brand review. With specialist support, they tapped into their main cultural strengths being a team ethos and a leadership that allowed their staff considerable autonomy to develop themselves, one another and the business as a whole. It was identified as part of the exercise that wolves were the only pack creatures whose leader, when hunting, led from the back, where it had the best vantage point, guiding and coordinating (but not interfering with) the work of the pack unless emergency or pack safety issues dictate it do so.
This culture was subsequently converted into a very successful brand for the business in question, creating in the process a valuable asset for the balance sheet in the form of registrable Intellectual Property - for further information on this particular form of property, look out for our upcoming dedicated post and see reference in our post entitled "StressBusting™ in a failing company scenario"
And what is more, the culture was embraced with so much vigour and enthusiasm by staff that many went about getting wolf pack tattoos to show their allegiance to the business and one another!
Such a method of identifying key characteristics that best define what a business and its whole team stands for is often the ideal starting point for then determining and building a culture that optimally encapsulates the business's value proposition.
The culture must, however, be relevant and realistic to be embraced. An individual commission only sales environment, for example, might struggle to create and gain buy in to a relaxed and uncompetitive internal culture. For this reason, it is extremely useful to draw on outside observations and expertise in both assessing current culture and smoothly introducing a new one.
Finally, it is worth noting that it can often be easier for a start up business to create a purposeful culture, as at point of start up it has a clean sheet of paper to work with in defining a culture that reflects its values and intents. But this is often overlooked in the cut and thrust of getting a business off the ground, despite the fact that doing so can avoid having to then potentially deal with an adverse cultural legacy that has 'embedded' itself in the business through the course of time and so proves difficult to shift.
If you can relate to the contents of this post and would like us to assist further or make an introduction to a specialist who might be able to as appropriate, feel free to reach out to us in confidence via our "Contact" page.
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