“Corporate Culture”, the true competitive advantage!

Whether you like it or not, in each organization there is a culture, but it might be the wrong one! A destructive toxic one. What is Culture? Countries, cities and even families have cultures, to define it properly, it is the combination of many factors joint in harmony together such as a language, a dialect, food, costume, habits, traditions, music and songs, behavior, reactions, while the most important element in any culture are the values and ethics this culture holds and promotes, this what makes it sustainable, this what makes it lasts.

Culture is driven first from the behavior of its leadership and consequently reflected on the entire structure of the employees, encapsulated in its core values, vision, mission and it can be easily observed from the way employees treat and communicate with each other and from the way they treat their venders, consultants, and customers.

Corporate culture is the soul of any organization, it defines its success or failure, as a leader if you are not putting enough efforts to build a good corporate culture then you are indirectly building a wrong one.

How to build a corporate culture? There are many schools and methodologies that illustrate the way, I have summarized the steps into the following.

1.??????Human Resources: ?As the leader, you must make sure that you are sourcing to the organization the right caliber of people in terms of attitude, knowledge, and skills. This is the most important step towards building a company that lasts for 50 years, and as much as this looks simple, it is not easy, a diversity of gender, nationalities, backgrounds and experiences can create a solid strong team. As a leader you must interview everyone, make sure that the selection process has no compromises, or it will be a catastrophe at a later stage.

2.??????Core Values: At early stage, the leader along with the entire team must work together to put the values that represent them and consequently represent the entire organization, remember that you can not change those values, you can add to them whenever is needed. Ask your employees what they like to have at their workplace. How they like to be seen as a team. What can make them unique. Those Values must encapsulate all that and the best way to do it is to ask the employees themselves to write down their values as a team. Remember that if those values do not have a positive impact on the local and international communities then there is something wrong.

3.??????Annual Initiatives: Employees must put together a list of annual initiatives that will help them to engage better together as a team and with their local communities. A budget is required for some of those initiatives to be achieved.

4.??????Lead by example: Employees must celebrate the success of each other, either personal “family” success or professional one, the leader must impose this attitude within the organization, this will take some time to become a habit among the entire employees. The leader must keep building this attitude till the stage that all employees feel “Safe” and are not afraid to ask for help or even to say, “I did a mistake”.

5.??????Monthly Meeting: to have a regular meeting with the entire team to share with them news, update them with the company achievements, give them feedback regarding their performance as a team or even one-to-one is highly appreciated, communication is everything and remember KPI stands for Keeping your employees Interested, Informed, Involved, and Inspired.

6.??????Motivation Motivation Motivation: Create an atmosphere of continuous motivation, believe in your employees, encourage them to develop themselves on daily basis, send them to talent development courses, push them to become the better version they wish to see in themselves.

7.??????Work-life balance: ?Make sure that all employees are living a normal life, no work after six, take care of your employees’ well-being, let them feel happy and they will do everything they can to make the company successful. Give them your time and attention.

8.??????A leader produces leaders: Make sure that the career path is clear for everyone, give them something to look at as a goal, reward and promote. Treat them as partners not employees and you will have an army of loyal employees, be fastidious with their details.

9.??????Fairness. Practicing favoritism in the workplace will create sad and demotivated employees, if they do not feel appreciated, they will leave, to create a positive corporate culture it is crucial to ensure that every member of your team feels valued and appreciated.

As you have noticed, building a good corporate culture is not something easy, it requires a lot of work and attention, therefore as a leader must, specially at early stages, bring the right people who share the same visons and inspiration like you to help you achieve this mission.

Some organizations do not pay attention to this matter, in fact the owners deal with employees as if they are slaves and keeps threating them every once in a while of termination, and to be fair those companies are having good achievements, but be careful you are “sleeping with the enemy” and the moment they receive an offer they will leave you, therefore if you want to build a company that lasts for generations, take good care of your people.?