CULTURE FEEDS ON STRATEGY FOR BREAKFAST AND IF LEFT UNATTENDED EVEN LUNCH AND DINNER: WATCH IT OR YOU PERISH.

In my next session on Entrepreneurship Bootcamp, I am focusing on this one thing; Culture. As one of the building blocks of sustainable business growth, an organization big or small should never ignore dealing with culture in a decisive manner as sooner or later it will be the cause of your headache and eventual collapse of the entire enterprise no matter how big or small; no matter how smart, whether you have great minds and strategies, plans or objectives.

I have worked long enough to know that for an organization to succeed and to grow sustainably, you will need systems and structures, policies, standards and procedures which in essence act as the foundations of the organization's operations to ward off any opportunity ffor revenue leakages. However all these are not possible to hold when culture is wrong and when the founders of the organization did not take time to ensure culture fit at the formative years of the enterprise. It pains me to note that this is where every financial distress begin, cashflows start to deep as a result of poor customer service, poor sales and everything to do with performance deeps, yet very few founders if any do anything about it. Having spent my best workingg years in helping set up systems of internal controls in organizations especially Small and Medium Sized ggrowth organizations and enteprises, I am able to tell at a very early stage whther we are goingg to succeed or not just by testing an organization's culture.

In terms of readiness for culture and system change, I can identify about four types of organizations I have come across in my life:

Those who Know that they don't know

There are those organizations which do thing in a casual manner only because that is how they have known things to happen, They would like to do things differently but because of lack of know-how or resources, they are unable to initiate change until a pro-change champion shows up. In this case when you start something new in terms of systems for internal control, they will quickly learn it and embrace it because they knew nothing.

Once Bitten Twice Shy

There are yet another category of organizations that stayed with the old far too long until they were bitten by their lack of systems and structures either through massive theft of resources or a serious non compliance hit that had to cost them an arm and a leg. These type will quickly adapt to a change and a new system because of past bad taste of not doing so, they are prepared not to go through that experience ever again.

Those who don't know what they want

Yet there is a another type that think they want change but do not know why they do so. They do not have any past experience and are not prepared for any change but may just be talking about it because others have done or are doing it. Because they do not fall within the first two, they are not expectant of change in terms of how their systems work or should work. These type will require a very long change process but eventually would accept change slowly but painfully.

The Toxic Ones

The last group is of that whose culture is rotten, this group is impenetrable with change, strategy or whatever there could be on the earth to improve performance of your enterprise. When culture is rotten the only way to bring a change in such enterprises is to do a complete overhaul like an engine overhaul in your tractor if you want to improve the tractors acreage performance. Now this does not mean that I am proposing a retrenchment of all your team but this may be the only way, the hard way or you will soon close shop permanently.

In fact with this last group, I have witnessed system sabotage, a complete refusal to use a well meaning process or policy and a reluctant adoption of systems and structures. With this culture you will end up alone and lonely on your desire to grow an enterprise.

This is why I am confident of a complete overhaul. Bad cultures do stand on your company's entry point or gate to welcome any new hires and begins to feed them  with negative attitude even before you finish induction programme. Have you ever heard of this say: "we will see how far s/he get" or "what or who does s/he thinks s/he is? S/he'll just cool down soon" These and many more are some of the word thrown at your new hires, the one(s) you brought in thinking you have a new lease of life, somebody who could help you push that strategic agenda, the one you thought would help in implementation of that system, the one who was supposedly to help to seal that loophole you've been longing to seal-off completely, that is the bright chap who was to see things from a different perspective. Soon this person will be joining their camp, will be singing their chorus if not the whole song, they will be part of the entire rot and nothing will have changed but you will instead be a convert of the saying 'the more things change the more they remain the same.' So where do we really go wrong? The entire sack of potatoes has entirely gone wrong. There is this one rotten potato that has deliberately made sure that each potato in the sack is not spared, because you left it unattended, you did not watch out.

So what are we supposed to do and where do we begin?

It starts and end with how we hire. When your hiring process from the first employee to the last is focused on today and not tomorrow then you will definitely experience a culture problem in the near future. If your focus is more on education rather than on character then your culture shock is just about to hit you.

I campaign for Character and culture Fit as the first and if possible the only things you should focus on when hiring in your enterprise.

You can train for skills but not culture. This concept became very clear to me when I sat to listen to a renown business guru, the guy who runs a multibillion enteprise selling chicken burger, out of all his talk I only came out with one thing: that upto 80% of an iceburg is hidden underneath the water while only about 20% is visible. Compare this to your potential new hire. Your new hire is made up of upto 80% character which is invisible fro sight while the visible 20% are skills gained from academic programmes (Bachelors & MBAs).

Hiring for tomorrow is the greatest challenge for many employers as they try to fill a gap that is created only today but forgetting that the employee may not be available for future growth of the company/organisation. Many if not employers are focused on what potential hire has in terms of qualification especially academics relying on degrees while forgetting that a degree only gives skills but does not in many situations lead to character which should be any employer's key focus when hiring. Therefore most employers focus on the wrong thing skill (Academic qualification) and so fail to hire for the future. Woe unto you if you do not seek to recruit culture fit and character first and above all else, since you will soon be on the search again for the right candidate which you will never find until you change your focus to Character and culture fit.. I rest my case.