Add a 6th Rock: Company Culture

“Your cul­ture is so pow­er­ful that it actu­al­ly helps employ­ees decide to stay or resign. Are you and your cul­ture worth stay­ing around?” — Jim Collins

A great part of the method­ol­o­gy we use for the strate­gic plan­ning we reg­u­lar­ly do, for grow­ing com­pa­nies around the world, is to have a vision for the com­pa­ny, long- and short-term goals, and quar­ter­ly deliv­er­ables for both the com­pa­ny and its key leaders.

And we’re lucky to work with com­pa­nies over 5, 10 or 15 years to see how their plan­ning and exe­cu­tion evolves and where it falls short.

One of the big areas that needs atten­tion is around cul­ture. When a com­pa­ny starts a plan­ning process, peo­ple get excit­ed about their vision, pur­pose, core val­ues and cul­ture, and enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly set BHAGs (Big Hairy Auda­cious Goals, as Jim Collins calls them).

But over time, com­pa­ny cul­ture fades into the back­ground and quick­ly becomes wall­pa­per, as the focus turns to pro­duc­tiv­i­ty – and then we won­der why peo­ple don’t want to stay. In the end, the own­er or founder doesn’t like what the com­pa­ny has become.

As a com­pa­ny grows, the key is to con­tin­u­al­ly sculpt the cul­ture into what you want it to become. You can put any group of peo­ple togeth­er but if they don’t have com­mon thread sewing them togeth­er, they’ll pull apart and go off in their own direction.

Come Alive Every Quarter

It’s not rock­et sci­ence – it’s about pay­ing atten­tion and doing some­thing new or dif­fer­ent to breathe life in the culture.

Jim Collins’ research con­firms the val­ue putting some extra ener­gy into remind­ing peo­ple of the val­ues and pur­pose of the orga­ni­za­tion. So, I sug­gest adding to your five quar­ter­ly plan­ning goals with a 6^th Rock to breathe life into your culture:

• It could be shoot­ing a video of peo­ple engaged in fun activ­i­ties together
• Or ask every­one to read an arti­cle that rein­forces your Core Val­ues, then get togeth­er to talk about it
• Cre­ate a Core Val­ues award to rec­og­nize peo­ple who exem­pli­fy them
• Get out and do an activ­i­ty together.

And there’s a hun­dred oth­er possibilities.

It’s about being think­ing, con­vers­ing and relat­ing to each oth­er around the most impor­tant prin­ci­ples of your business.

By the way, one of the worst ideas is the poster. It becomes wall­pa­per in a few hours or days and does nothing.

We have end­less ideas from the hun­dreds of great exam­ples we’ve seen over the years, so if you need help, let us know.

The Chal­lenge

If a great com­pa­ny cul­ture is an impor­tant part of your strategy…

• What have you done to rein­force it in the last 90 days?
• How can you make sure cul­ture stays a part of strate­gic plan process?