How to Use Culture for Competitive Advantage

Culture is often seen as the soft side of management, as Joanna Higgins observes. In my experience, it's actually the hardest, because it deals with attitudes and behaviours which all seem a bit vague but are critical to the company.

My definition of culture is "the way we do things around here". A business often has less of an established culture, more a set of habits developed over time.

But, creating a winning culture that can often be a real differentiator in the market place means managing it, driving it and consistently reinforcing it.

Creating the culture you want is not an overnight job and it's certainly not a paper exercise, but here are five questions to get you thinking and hopefully get you to do something:

Question 1: What's our current culture? Every company has one.

A conference delegate once told me: "We don't have a culture. No one gives a damn at our place."

"That's your culture!" I cried.

Getting a clear, objective view of your current culture is a useful point to start from. Why not get your people to describe it -- pluses and minuses. You could ask your customers, too.

Which aspects are you happy or unhappy with? Get a picture of what you need to keep, what to eliminate and what to work on.

Question 2: What do we want it to be? Establish some core values.

Great leaders shape spell out a picture of the culture they're striving for, sometimes just a set of guiding principles or values. The best seem to go further, though, by establishing preferred behaviours that support these values. A brilliant example is Zappos, the online US retailer which boils its culture down to a set of 10 core values (read Zappos CEO Tony Hseih's fantastic book, "Delivering Happiness", and you'll see exactly how this stuff works).

Core values can help provide guidelines for acceptable and unacceptable behaviour -- experience shows that this also helps manage performance more effectively. Again, getting ownership of these behaviour is key. It should not just be seen as a management thing.

Don't just put stylish arty posters of people rowing together as a team on the wall in your reception and hope that will promote teamwork.

This is about actions, not words. Apparently, one of Enron's published values was integrity. It's not what you say, it's what you do that counts.

Question 3: What do we value? Reward staff for living your company culture.

Ever had someone in your team who achieves all their goals and hits all their targets, but is basically a real pain because they wind others up, demotivate colleagues and upset team members? If you measure individuals on results alone, regardless of their behaviour, then you're asking for trouble.

Successful companies reward the behaviour they want as well as results. A frustrated business leader wsd struggling to get her people to delight their customers. "What's the reward for doing that in your business?" I asked. She looked puzzled. Talking to her staff, it was clear that the reward for putting the effort in and going the extra mile for a customer was lots more work.

Winning businesses celebrate their champions. They encourage, acknowledge, support and reward those that promote and act in line with the core values.

Equally, they deal with those individuals who do not. What happens in your business to those who don't support the culture? If the answer is nothing, then expect some people to take the easy option of not bothering.

Question 4: Do our systems and processes help or hinder? Bolt culture into the way you measure and maintain the business.

A focus on culture should be at the core of your reward systems, feedback systems, appraisal processes, promotion criteria, recruitment and selection processes. Do you look for evidence of matches to your core values in prospective employees, for example?

"The problem is many companies say they are doing it, but really are only giving it lip service and doing it incredibly badly" says Richard Reed of Innocent, the smoothie-maker. Innocent has an array of incentives and reward mechanisms that support and promote their core values.

Back to Zappos: it offers new recruits $3,000 to walk away during the induction process. It wants people totally committed to what they are trying to achieve and are prepared to pay them not to join.

Question 5: What are our leaders like as role models?

This is a critical issue. Lots of business leaders say the right things, but don't do them. In organisations that drive this stuff, it's the leaders who are great role models. They make the core values visible and talk about them at every opportunity. They recognise that their people judge them not by what they say, but by what they do, and crucially, what they are seen to do.

So, how can you get started in addressing the issue of culture in your organisation? Why not start with putting these questions on the agenda of your next management or team meeting to get the ball rolling

Use the answers to identify your next steps.

(Photo: katerha, CC2.0)

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