Mitchell Phoenix - Leadership and Management Training

If one defines organizational culture as the collective values and behaviors of every individual within a business, what influence does this have on overall performance?

When we overlay culture, whatever form it may take, onto strategy, leadership, communication, customer focus, continuous improvement and sustainability, to name but a few core business competencies, we can immediately sense the influence that culture will have on output. Organizational culture will determine levels of efficiency, teamwork, quality, speed of decision making, employee engagement, innovation and reputation. It will block or embrace change, it will build legacy or stagnate, it will inspire or depress. Ultimately it drives the results.

How much attention does business pay to organizational culture? What connections does it make to some of the symptoms of a strong or weak culture?

When any organization examines its levels of employee churn, absenteeism, sick leave, internal promotions, overtime, its value of appraisal, effectiveness of meetings, its customer relationships, the willingness of its workforce to contribute freely, it can gain a measure of how healthy its culture is. How does any business ensure a healthy culture?

There is a clue for all of us in the purpose of management, which is ‘to secure the future’. A healthy culture is a leadership responsibility. When we hear about setting a good example it is actually about exhibiting the culture of the business. Feedback, good and bad, is indicative of what is important to the organization. If the strategic outlook is customer focused or bottom-line oriented it will drive out decisions and actions accordingly. Culture can be built with consistent management style, common language, shared best-practice and guiding principles. Any company can achieve a strong platform for growth if it invests in it and has the buy-in of senior executives.

Rockerfeller once said that he would pay ten times the salary to someone who could influence people who were smarter than they were. That is the importance he placed on being able to influence. Culture is influence over the ability to deliver strategy through people and it is vital.

What is the impact of organizational culture on performance? Whatever you decide.

Business is on the edge of a new economic age that is already increasingly complex and unpredictable. Economic power shifts, emerging markets, natural disasters, scarcity of resources, population explosion, regulation, fear of double-dip recession all compound the challenges around growth and sustainability.

The pressures on business have seldom been as intense as they are today. Companies are under pressure, more than ever, to manage and maintain their reputation, manage their talent and keep pace with emerging technologies.

In 2004 Hewlett Packard embarked on further development of its excellence culture which was already highly focused on continuous improvement. It built on its existing culture by integrating continuous improvement with ‘continuous learning’.