Cultural Alignment - The Unseen Powerful Force in Business

A client recently approached us to assist them with improving their company culture.

When we asked them what company culture meant to them, and why they felt the culture needed “improving”, the client revealed examples of passive team conflict, silo thinking and examples of entitlement behaviors.

After years of being in business, building and systemising businesses, and working with many business owners, our most profound learning has been this…

“What business owners most often identify as the problem, is rarely the problem. It is usually the symptom of a hidden problem.”

The actual cause of the problem can go undetected for decades, resulting in issues that keep resurfacing and causing frustration for business owners. Not to mention ongoing time and money leakages.

To cut a long story short, we identified two main issues around our client’s company culture:

1. Lack of meaningful values, with little buy in from the team. 
2. Lack of a sense of ownership. A short anonymous survey revealed that some team members had an inflated sense of what the business owners made, and the current culture promoted “silo thinking” instead of “ownership thinking”.

To correct the issues, we formulated a plan with inbuilt accountability for the directors, to remedy these issues.

1. We started with identifying a set of no more than 5 values, that were specific, meaningful, non-generic, relevant and connected to the company’s vision and goals.
2. Secondly, we crafted a team meeting policy that would incorporate a very brief and subtle framing of values, to make them a natural and integrated part of the team rhythm.
3. Thirdly, we worked on a plan to create more transparency around business financials, with key team members being trained on key financial metrics, and how they can contribute to those metrics along with rewards alignment. The goal was to instill a sense of ownership amongst high-performing, as well as high-potential, employees.
4. A revision of the Key Performance Indicator Plan, to incorporate “behavioral” aspects, that would demonstrate loyalty and care towards the company mission and goals.

Business issues are complex and not always obvious.

Our approach is always to diagnose the cause of the problem first, to ensure that we are working on the roots before we work on the branches or the leaves.

It’s frustrating for business owners who are time-strapped, and over worked in many cases, to work on issues that keep resurfacing and re-emerging.

In this particular example, pinpointing the cause of the problem, understanding the impact of not fixing the problem, and putting in place very precise frameworks around a very limited set of important issues, meant they we were able to put some very specific tasks, deadlines and accountabilities to remedy the problem, without distractions getting in the way.

As business advisors, we feel that effectiveness is to take foremost precedent over efficiency. If we are not prioritizing the right things, doing things right, still doesn’t achieve results.

A nice way to wrap this up is with some Drucker wisdom - "Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things".

When we, as business owners, prioritize the right things, a lot of things take care of themselves; both in business, and in life.

Ron Malhotra | Advisor & Mentor to Ambitious Professionals, Visionary Entrepreneurs & Business Owners