I am the Visionary at EOS Worldwide and am passionate about helping entrepreneurs get what they want from their businesses.
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Yogi Berra once said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you might end up someplace else.” This unique nugget of wisdom is a good starting point in a conversation about company culture because it spotlights what makes it so valuable: Culture tells your team where you’re going.
A cohesive company culture provides a clear vision and direction, making it easier for everyone to work together toward a common goal and to weather hardship and change when it happens. It also tends to make work a more fun place to be.
On the flip side, if a company lacks this guiding force, it can hurt both employee engagement and profits. As Peter Drucker once said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” For those of you still struggling to make the culture you want happen at work, let this be the guide to help you get there. Your company—and your teammates—will thank you.
The Different Types Of Company Culture
Before delving into some helpful strategies for implementing a positive company culture, let’s first take a quick look at the four main culture types so you know what you should be aiming for—and what you should avoid.
1. Command And Control
This is a culture that favors and rewards blindly following orders from the top. Command and control is the type of culture you might find in a Charles Dickens novel, where workers are treated as cogs in a machine rather than as valuable team members. It’s undoubtedly an intentional choice, but far from a healthy one.
2. The Happy Accident
Basically, this is the opposite of command and control; it's what can happen when a business is built with no organizing principle beyond hiring people the founders like. On a small scale, this can end up working great and bring a personal touch to work. However, if you plan to grow your business over time, then you need something more structured and intentional.
3. Chaotic
If you fail to have any type of intentional cultural vision by the time you move past the point of hiring only family and friends, you’re going to end up with dysfunction. Factions will form and office politics will become more important than productivity. In other words, it will be past time to move on to a better way of doing things.
4. Intentional
This is a culture that is built from the bottom up around core values that act as a strong foundation for everything else. That includes hiring, firing and everything in between. With this organic approach, you can create a workplace built around love and a shared vision rather than one based on scarcity or fear.
How To Establish A Healthy, Intentional Culture
So the big question remains—how do you make this type of intentional culture a reality? Here are four steps to help get your company off on the right foot.
1. Start With A Vision
It’s hard to know where you’re going if you can’t visualize or describe it. A clearly articulated vision provides you with the target you need to aim for when building your company culture. What do you want your company’s values and practices to look like? How might people feel and act in your ideal workplace culture? Without a coherent vision, your ship will always be rudderless.
2. Establish A Handful Of Core Values
Come up with a small set of core values (somewhere between three and seven) that can act as pillars of your intentional culture. It should be possible for every single person in your organization to memorize these values and recite them.
Keep in mind, these shouldn’t be overly basic, vague or aspirational values. They need to be authentic, practical beliefs that drive your company. In other words, if it sounds like a motivational cat poster, you might need to keep digging.
3. Define Your Hiring Process
In order to attract people who fit the culture you want to create, your hiring process needs to be well-defined. Make sure you’re advertising positions to the right demographics and that your interviewing process takes into account your core values. Favor referrals that come from within the company, and don’t be afraid to ask for as many references as you need.
While you should market and interview based on your core values, don’t plaster those values all over your website. Otherwise, you may end up with candidates who are just paying lip service to them without really possessing the qualities needed to uphold them.
4. Avoid Hiring Leaders Who Don’t Love Leading
Managers need to actually love leading and working with people. If they don’t, they’ll never be able to instill a positive outlook in their team. Instead, they’ll leave a negative impression that will last long after they’re gone.
Remember, building a healthy culture won’t always be a frictionless process. When our company began to actively enforce its core values, it ended up losing about 23% of our team members. While this might sound like a blow, the truth is we were only sad to see about 1% of them go.
After this exodus, we had tremendous growth, less friction, higher energy and happier clients. Our culture helped the company become a better version of itself. And it can help you do the same as long as you’re willing to visualize your goal, focus on your values and put in the work.
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