Articles—Company Culture Basics
Click on each underlined title for the full article.
Introduction
What is Company Culture?
A company's culture is its personality. It tells people how to do their work. It takes its signals from leaders. It underlies motivation, morale, creativity, and marketplace success. How do you lead it?
Benefits of a Good Company Culture
Because the company culture influences everything and everyone in it, a well-developed company culture creates positive changes across the board. Managers who have developed their company culture report improvements in many areas, including:
How Long Culture Change Takes
The speed of culture change depends on size, commitment, and resources. Many results are visible immediately.
The Cost of Culture Development
The costs of building a more productive culture are quite small, mostly time. Here are the elements of culture change, their costs, some benefits, and a quiz on your existing culture related expenses.
Example—Culture Change in Three Days
This highly motivated midwest management team began their culture change overnight.
The Person
People — Why We Do What We Do
People's imaginations inspire their behavior. They will act positively when they see themselves positively, when leaders set a positive stage.
To Understand Behavior, Look at the Situation, Look at the Culture.
"There is no event in a vacuum." Every event, every action, every problem, comes from a situation, from a context. To understand an event or a problem, you should examine the situation that led to it.
A "Good Company Culture" Defined
In a "good" work culture people can fulfill their desires around the tasks. This is a workplace with high morale and motivation—and thus high productivity.
Many Employees Think One Thing, But Do Another
For many employees what goes on in their head is not what they show through their actions. This split between thought and behavior is stressful and very unproductive.
Example—Capturing the Spirit of Independence
Engaging employees' spirit of independence can be highly motivating, as this story shows.
Laws and Principles of Culture
The Two Halves of Culture
Company cultures have two halves, the Human and the Operations. The key to building a more engaged and productive workplace, is balancing these—balancing what we do with how we do it.
The Five Levels of Culture
Company cultures have five distinct parts or levels. In a highly developed work culture, these parts are in balance
Evolution of a Work Culture
Company cultures do not develop with the familiar analyze-plan-direct process used for operational issues. They develop with an evolutionary process. Here are the principles of evolution.
Company Culture—A Look at Its Structure
When you change a culture you change a general system. These are some characteristics of general systems.
Studies and Reports Will Not Develop a Company Culture
Studies might actually make things worse. Action is essential. The results are deeply gratifying.
Some Company Culture Maxims
A short list.
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