Building Corporate Culture

If your strategy is a ship, then your corporate culture is the river along which it
sails. Strategy can be scuppered by a dry riverbed or get stranded on sandbanks.
Or it can flow powerfully and confidently towards its goal on a strong …wide ..and
deep river.

Hello Iʼm JD of MP

Today Iʼm going to talk to you about building a corporate culture, how to develop
it and what it brings to a company.

The Culture of an organization is the environment that houses its Values

Attitudes Energy and Focus. It is largely determined by its leaders who influence
it consciously… or by the force of their personality, sub-consciously.

Two key elements that will shape Corporate Culture are a Common Management
Language and a Common Management Style.

Lets first consider Common Management Language.

Not only does it give universal meaning to the whole organization, it is a

fundamental element in mobilizing people because it is an Active language. The
shared words and concepts create forward momentum and set out a standard of
delivery. They allow people to be in full control of the quality in their approach
and the rest of the organization can immediately recognize whether the individual
is fulfilling their responsibility.

A Common Management Language is the strongest way of communicating a

companyʼs values and helps people turn them into action.

Here are 3 practical ways that you can use today, tomorrow and in the future to
immediately start building a Common Management Language.

The first way is to ask everyone “What do we expect of each other in the way that
we work?”

By exploring this question it becomes possible to distil a set of active approaches

that everyone at all levels can adopt. The actions will be specific and apply to any
area of the business and any task.

The second practical step is to engage management at every level and

encourage them to use the new ideas and concepts in all communication,

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including meetings, emails and presentations. Not only will they be
communicating goals and objectives, they will be communicating quality of
expected approach. Since quality drives quantity, results will be improved…. from
output …to speed of delivery.

The Third practical step in building Common Language is feedback. Managers

can support the common language by highlighting back to people and others in
the organization successes that have been achieved by acting on the language.
Make connections between their success and the way they succeeded reflected
in the common language.

One of the huge advantages of a shared common language is that it gives the
ability to all at every level to draw attention to poor support of the common
language. You are either doing it or you arenʼt.

A second key element in building a strong, enabling corporate culture is Common

Management style. This is a consistent, recognizable set of management
practices that are adopted throughout an organization, from top to bottom. The
most significant advantage of a Common Management Style is visible Leadership
in Action. It creates the ability to Lead by Example that is repeatable and
actionable by every single manager in your organization. Every… single …one.

With that common style in place an organization has immense potential to

outperform its competition.

Here are 3 practical ways that you can use today, tomorrow and in the future to
immediately start building a Common Management Style.

Step One is to define a common set of management practices that will operate
and support the business at each level. Practices that are used by the Chief
executive to junior managers, graduate recruits and staff.

Decide on the principles and processes that are the benchmark for good
management in your business and apply them. It will become evident very
quickly that there is greater strength and focus when people are acting in a
consistent, high quality fashion.

The second practical way to building a Common Management style is to develop

a system for communicating that style and approach and equipping managers
with the tools to apply good management practice. When managers are armed
with a clear sense of how to fulfil their responsibility you will see new confidence,
new ideas and an ability to get the most out of their people.

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When that system for communicating style and approach is in place it provides
long-term continuity in the management population.

A third practical step towards a Common Management style is to encourage and

monitor. The simplest way to do this is to integrate how managers are managing
into the Appraisal process. This gives an opportunity to reflect on and remind
managers of what is expected of them through the way in which they set an
example.

To recap: Decide on best practice in your organization; Communicate and equip

managers with the means to demonstrate best practice; Use the Appraisal
process to encourage and monitor.

When building corporate culture a decision needs to be taken as to what it will

be. Eventually it becomes the habit of the organization. Culture defines the ability
of a company to fulfill its purpose. It defines your boundaries, your spirit, your
reputation, your heart.

Build a culture that believes in people, and one that people believe in.

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