Do you believe that creating a winning culture is vital to the success of your business? If no, skip to the next article. If yes, what steps have you taken to build a winning culture within your organization?
Each year Fortune and Forbes magazines’ complete extensive surveys and publish their respective lists of the “Best Places to Work”. These surveys rank the top companies in a broad range of categories including job satisfaction, pay and benefit programs, attitudes about management, internal communication, hiring practices, training, and diversity efforts.
What makes these businesses great companies to work for and recognized leaders in their respective industries?
Whether your business is a start-up or well established, it’s important to recognize that everyone wants to be a part of building something special — a great company. And culture is an undeniable part of the fabric of any great company. A lot has been written about culture and its importance, but do we really understand what goes into creating a winning culture?
For example, if you were to make a list of the essential ingredients of a winning culture for your business, what would the list include? Here’s my list of the essential ingredients for a winning culture:
- Vision. The company’s vision is important because it aligns leadership and employees around a common purpose, set of priorities and best practices that serve to shape the organization.
- Clarity. In order to create a climate for success, people must understand not only the vision and direction for the company, but also what is expected of them. Be clear on expectations and get “buy-in” from everyone involved.
- Values. Core Values are the company’s guiding principles. Values define who you are, what you believe, and what you want to be in the future. The Vision and Cores Values together are also a vital part of the company’s future legacy.
- Leadership. Winning cultures are determined by the daily activities with the business. Leaders at all levels, therefore, must set a positive tone through their interaction with others and leading by example.
- People. Employees (Team Members) are your greatest asset. Hire great people, train them, challenge them, support them and ensure they are properly motivated for their continued growth and development.
- Accountability. Establishing goals, measuring performance and holding employees and all other stakeholders accountable for results is a must if you want to create a winning culture. Everyone needs to have an ownership mentality and “skin in the game”.
- Communication. Communication must be consistent, open, honest and direct at all levels within the organization. Trust and respect should also be evident so employees are comfortable sharing their thoughts openly without fear of reprisal.
- Innovation. Innovation is a competitive advantage and critical to growth. Embrace change and foster an environment that encourages risk-taking, creativity, continuous learning and improvement.
- Fun. Happy, engaged employees are productive employees. Find ways to put fun into the work. Otherwise it becomes drudgery and productivity, attendance, team morale and retention suffers.
Great companies set the standards of excellence by combining strong values with great vision, people, products, leadership and a winning culture. A winning culture isn’t just something you dream about or hope will occur naturally. It’s something that is created and evolves over time through purposeful actions on the part of all invested stakeholders.
If you want your business to be recognized as a great company that everyone wants to work for, then think about the culture you are creating and how it can become an ever-increasing part of your future success story.
Enjoy the journey!
John
COPYRIGHT © 2019 John Carroll