Building Culture

Culture has been a buzzword in business schools for many years now. Countless books and seminars highlight the importance of building a robust organizational culture; many rave about it being the cornerstone of business while failing to provide actionable advice. So, how do you effectively establish culture? The first step is understanding what culture is and how it impacts your organization.  

Culture is a set of convictions, values, and language shared by a group of people. According to Mahatma Gandhi, “A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.” Culture comprises the deep-rooted beliefs of the collective whole. These beliefs are incredibly impactful for teams because members base their decisions and habits on them. As such a vital part of human interaction, it is no wonder culture is such a hot topic in business circles. 

As entrepreneur Andy Dunn said, “No one gave me a recipe for how to create company culture. I wish I had one.” To build a strong culture, you need to intentionally influence the convictions, values, and behaviors of those around you. This cannot be done through coercion, pressure, or compulsion. You cannot pay or threaten someone to change the way they believe or the principles they hold. So, what’s the secret to cultivating an environment where the culture you want to instill can thrive and take root? Start with these cultural pillars: definitions, repetition, storytelling, and artifacts.

Definitions

Defining your organization’s beliefs, values, and language is the first step of building a strong culture. Many organizations include these definitions in their core values and mission, vision, or purpose statements. They are potent declarations of what your company stands for and should bring clarity, vision, and purpose to your team. Leaders often try to define these critical statements in closed offices without input from their teams. This is a mistake. Your team’s buy-in is crucial to the success of your developing culture. You can foster trust and engagement by asking for their input and listening to their feedback. This will go a long way toward earning their buy-in. 

To ensure your statements provide clarity, keep them brief and straightforward. Many leaders try to cram in as many words as possible to make their statements more impactful. This achieves the opposite result; the more verbose the statements or values, the less likely people are to remember them and incorporate them into their daily lives. Creating something concise and authentic is the most effective way to make it meaningful. As the famous modernist architect, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said, “Less is more.”

Repetition

Once you have clearly defined your organization’s beliefs and values,  you must repeat them often—very often. Muhammad Ali said, “It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.” Repetition is the key to instilling faith and conviction. We know this to be true, yet we rarely use it as a tool. We find the monotony of repeating the same message taxing, so instead, we try to change or improve upon it. To absorb a message, people need to hear it repeatedly. Don’t express a concept once and expect people to know and comprehend it. To effectively communicate an abstract idea like culture, you need to repeat your message incessantly—until your team not only hears it, but understands it, believes it, and acts on it. This can seem redundant, but remember that others are likely just beginning to grasp your message when you start to feel you have exhausted it. 

Make it a point to review your core values and mission statement at the beginning of every internal meeting. You don’t need to dedicate large portions of your meetings to this, but regularly repeating these statements keeps culture at the forefront of everyone's minds.  

Storytelling

Storytelling is the most powerful way to build confidence in the cultural message you are trying to instill. Through stories, people can relate to each other about being a part of the culture and exemplifying it. Telling stories about people living the mission, vision, or values of your company brings abstract concepts to life and solidifies them as a part of who you are as a collective whole. Creating a compelling narrative can be challenging, but it is another crucial element of belief and buy-in.  

As a leader, the best way to inspire people is to embody your organization’s mission and values in your own life. This doesn’t mean self-aggrandizing and boasting about how you live the values, but leading by example and aggressively adhering to them. 

Once you are committed to living the values, start digging to find examples of them in your teammates. When you recite your mission statement and core values in meetings, share stories illustrating recent ways your team members acted in alignment with your values. Pointing out specific actions and connecting them to your desired culture will solidify that the principles you are trying to engrain are already part of who your employees are. The next—and most crucial—step is asking other people to share stories. This can feel awkward at first because it is challenging to come up with stories off the cuff. Give them a minute or two to think about it. It may be helpful to ask a couple of people to come prepared with stories, so you know you will have examples to start with.  

This is an excellent practice for every meeting. It only takes a minute or two, but it starts your meetings with a reminder of who your team is and what they stand for. 

Artifacts

Every great culture throughout history has left behind physical artifacts. These are material items that meant something to the people who owned them and reinforced the culture they belonged to. Artifacts serve as physical representations of combined beliefs. 

One example of a powerful modern artifact is a wedding ring. A wedding ring is only a tiny piece of metal you wear on your finger, but it represents much more than that. That piece of metal sends a message to the person wearing it and everyone around them. Tangible artifacts bring the abstract ideas of your culture into the real world and allow you to touch or physically point to them. 

Choosing artifacts to reinforce your company culture can be tricky. You need to find something you and your team can rally behind and put value into. Maybe it is a card with your core values and mission statement printed on it. It can even be signage on the walls, an article of clothing, or your name tags. There are tons of creative ways to incorporate meaningful artifacts into your team culture. These artifacts become powerful tools for generating unity and a sense of belonging amongst those who share them. They should reflect the same language and standards you are trying to communicate.  

The most important part of artifacts is taking them seriously and adding meaning to them through your buy-in. At Young Automotive Group, one of the ways we do this is with red shoes. Each member of our management team is required to complete a rigorous training program. Once they have completed it and passed off a difficult skill in front of their peers, they are awarded a pair of red shoes. The managers wear their red shoes to combined meetings because they are the physical representation of the skills they have learned and mastered. These shoes have become artifacts that bring commonality and a sense of meaning to the team. They represent learning that has taken place and the values we hold dear. This has helped us deepen our culture and faith in our organization.  

The entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk said, “Company culture is the backbone of any successful organization.” When you strengthen your culture, you give your team purpose and create connections. Through definition, repetition, storytelling, and artifacts, you can achieve a culture with unlimited potential.  

Written by Oliver Young

Edited by Tiff Gibson