The fish smells from the head.

If you expect anything new in this you might be disappointed. Just a couple of thoughts emerged from simple observation. Some from my own work as an entrepreneur, other thanks to organisations we work with or friends and family. And I am sure I might generate rather more questions than answers in the end.

Corporate culture is a hot topic in our days. As money become less effective in attracting talents, organisations somehow better understand the importance of the culture and its impact to engagement, motivation and performance. At least some do. Not always easy to define, we know culture is nothing more than the “HOW we do things around here”. Again, no surprise. They are visible and invisible aspects of culture and some would think the colours of our walls and carpets, the dressing code or the style of the furniture is part of it. Unfortunately, the affect of the visible aspects to culture is no more than the shape of the bowl is causing to the taste of the soup you eat.

Culture is the stories people tell you when you ask them why would they (or wouldn’t) recommend their company to their friends looking for a job. It’s about how people communicate with colleagues and subordinates. Your culture is seen in the way you hire and fire employees. Sometimes people find hard to describe you their company’s culture in a couple of words but they know exactly which behaviours and attitudes are rewarded or punished.

Corporations led by entrepreneurs/owners develop a culture, which is very often a reflection of the leader’s own values and beliefs. Tomas Bata is a great example of an entrepreneur and leader his values and related corporate culture have inspired and shaped a generation of leaders worldwide. However, corporations run by managers often face an identity crisis. Shareholders and financial markets’ pressure for short-term results, short time management contracts and performance indicators mainly based on financial figures often have a fatal impact on the company’s culture. “Common purpose and vision” becomes a boring exercise, in the best case no more than a tool to “engage” employees rather than something we believe in. “Let the HR run this culture thing!”, get it part of our offsite, pay someone to facilitate this, get great PowerPoint presentations, buy some cool photos from a photo bank and DONE! How this happened and what went wrong?

The main problem corporations face today is that even if there is a serious work done to generate a mission statement, common purpose and vision, even when the core values have been defined and communicated across the organisation, the four-five values are often hard to remember and become soon after defined only nice posters on the walls. Moreover, often managers tend to emphasise a value that is currently not in place hoping that naming it will help the value to arise. Unfortunately this is usually not enough and things get even worst: people become cynic about a core value that is really important for meeting their goals but not present. And being cynic now is part of the new culture!

Employees’ satisfaction and engagement surveys reveal that remuneration becomes a significantly less important factor in developed economies and large cities. WELL THIS IS GOOD, RIGHT? What people perceive more important is the general atmosphere and work relationships. When we examine further, we find out that the critical factors are communication, collaboration and support. How can we map and improve these? When people evaluate the communication quality high, you are expecting a culture promoting open and constructive feedback, mutual respect. When collaboration is rated high, then you expect people understand their interdependence, need for mutual support; count on each other and share essential information across the teams. Are we doing enough today to enhance collaboration, TEAM WORK, open communication, constructive feedback? Do leaders and managers know how to talk with their people, motivate them and help them build on their strengths?

Culture eventually is the set of behaviours we encourage and reward. If we ignore or tolerate unethical behaviours they will become part of our culture. If we ignore proactive and customer focused attitude we will hardly build a customer focused culture. Recognition and support will cause behaviours and attitudes that we admire to become our new culture. And I personally believe the CEO has THE critical role here. The ones I know which are successful are the ones who managed to awaken the entrepreneurial spirit in them. This is the only thing CEOs can do to succeed long term. Get back to the values and culture of the Hewlett Packard garage. Or find a new job.

Nikos Balamotis

Managing Director

QED GROUP s.a.