Building Corporate Culture and "Love Buddies"

Imagine calling this guy your "Love Buddy"!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mudlogging.JPG

Everyone understands that a corporate strategy requires a corporate culture that can execute it. Unfortunately, so few corporations understand how to build that culture.

I recall my stint in the US oil industry back in the 80's and 90's. High paid consultants were brought in to tell employees how to build that culture. They were told how interact and how many hours should be spent doing leisure or team building activities. They teamed up employees with each other and assigned titles, like "lover" and "love buddy". Imagine a corporation of engineers and geologists who cut their teeth in the oil patches of West Texas and Oklahoma suffering through that nonsense. It, of course, failed.

The problem I experienced back in the day wasn't that corporate culture building was a bad idea. It was a great idea. Building it was the problem. No one can build a corporate culture. Cultures develop over time. What the manager and CEO can do is ENABLE a culture to develop and guide its direction. This involves developing and understanding the company Vision and communicating that Vision to all employees.

But a moment about Vision. If you want employees to be committed, that Vision must be one they want to support. Making a bucket of money selling groceries for the stockholders rarely invigorates an employee. But reducing neighborhood unemployment by 74% and/or funding a local school through a grocery coop will. Employees working towards the latter Vision will not only be more committed, but actually alter Mission, the how the Vision is achieved, to be more effective. This is done through commitment and employee cooperation. Have some faith. With a clear achievable and desired goal, you'll be surprised by employee performance. This is culture. The CEO's job is to create the environment where that culture will develop and then reward high performers. It is not the CEO's job to dictate how the employee built that culture.

So what does the CEO do to enable a culture? Pretty much a four phase job, communications, enabling and rewarding. Develop that vision, communicate the vision, listen to employees, enable employees to act on good ideas and develop mission, and reward good performance. And keep in mind, a proper CEO will be sure to include not only the stockholders but employees in the financial rewards, further incentivizing everyone to continue to build on a successful culture.

Best of luck "love buddies".