Win With Culture

On several occasions I have spoken and written about the importance of designing and implementing a "Winning Culture" at your respective business. The evidence continues to mount that "culture" can make all the difference between so-so performance and dramatic positive results in any market. One CEO/Owner recently said it best: "If we get the culture right, Jack, all the other things you speak to in Sales and Sales Management will be easier. If we don't get the culture right, everything you speak to will be hard." Wow, how right this is!

When I think about culture, it's creating an environment in our company, where the people who work there don't get up and say "Oh, I gotta go to work today", but rather "Hey, I get to go to work there!' and actually recognize the positive differences of working in our company and look forward to going in. If we can create such an environment, we then would have a competitive, sustainable advantage. Unfortunately, few companies are spending the efforts needed here, and in a tightened economy, even less effort is being expended!

John Kotter spent 10 years studying and comparing companies with a focus and effort on culture to those companies that didn't and he discovered four significant take-away's:

•Revenues increased 682 % vs. 166%
•Stock prices increased 901% vs. 74%
•Net income increased 756% vs. 1%
•Job growth increased 282% vs. 36%

Pretty compelling data! Key to a winning culture are the systems and processes that reinforce communication, recognition and empowerment, amongst a number of other areas. Someone needs to "own" this effort and make it an ongoing lifeblood of the company. The fad of the quarter would arguably be worse than doing nothing at all. So, the first thing we must wrestle down is "who is responsible for this effort?"