Company Culture: The Force Behind the Success
- Zoran Vidovic
- Dec 18, 2024
- 6 min read
Ever wonder what makes a company successful? What makes it stand out?
What is its driving force? How does a company tackle challenges?
It's the employees that drive it and the culture that steers it into success!
How?
What is a company culture?
What is a culture in the first place? It is the main driving force for every society throughout history. It has built huge empires and also destroyed them.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as: "the way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time; the attitudes, behaviour, opinions, etc. of a particular group of people within society."
So, it is a social consensus on important aspects of life. A group of individuals coming together and forming a society with a shared belief and value system, governed by laws and regulations.
The company culture is a micro-society with its laws and regulations. It serves a greater cause defined in the company's mission and vision.
Sounds much like a cult when you put it this way, but it is just an organic need of humans to belong to a group with shared interests, values, and beliefs.
Every company fulfills that role. It is just a question of whether common interests, values, and beliefs serve or exploit employees and society.
Every society rests on several basic pillars:
Politics and law.
This pillar governs all others by backing the society's interest with a legal framework. It creates policies, laws, and regulations that maintain order and protect every person's rights. It also represents the society in relation to other societies.
Economy.
It governs trade and business within society and with other societies. It makes a framework for sustainable and fair economic practices with the purpose of serving the society and driving development and growth.
Education.
Supports all other pillars as it drives society on its path of growth and development by creating a framework for education and social development.
Human Relations.
This is the nucleus that makes each society, and the society does not exist without it. The society is formed around it to serve and protect it. This relates to not only immediate family but also the outer circle of friends, acquaintances, peers, and colleagues, who have a profound influence on each individual.
Religion and belief system.
This pillar supports and governs human relations, as it is the moral and spiritual authority and guide in achieving balance between us as individuals and us as a society.
Health and well-being.
It is an important aspect of society as it serves society by preserving and advancing the health of individuals and society as a whole.
Information and communication.
This is a very important pillar, as it allows informed consent in every decision-making process, ranging from politics, laws, and the economy to health, religion, and human relations.
Without open information flow, society diminishes into a dystopian, enslaved, and manipulated form of social organization that functions on leverages of fear and the law of power.
A company incorporates the same elements, as each company operates within a society, and it's influenced by it.
Each company has people in charge who tailor and implement rules and regulations governing the company's approach to business.
It also incorporates and governs employee education and professional development in support of the set mission and vision.
It sets the expectations for human relations with understanding and appreciating personal religious and belief systems.
It supports and works towards advancing the health and well-being of its employees.
It shares all relevant information to empower employees to develop and make informed decisions in their pursuit of a fulfilled and rewarding career.
We need to understand the influence humans have on this delicate process of creating a company culture.
Each department is managed by someone who brings their expectations, personal goals, culture, and professional experience to the table.
This then defines their approach to running their department, which influences the company's culture.
How do we create a company culture?
Although it appears to be a complicated and elaborate process, it is fairly simple. If we do not create one, it will create itself.
This is important to remember. There is a culture formed in every group of people that coexists, interacts, and depends on each other.
A company provides a platform where all three elements are interconnected, subsequently forming a culture within.
We need to make sure to align and interconnect these elements with the basic pillars of a society to provide a platform for growth and development for all, with a profound sense of personal beliefs.
Coexistence. It means existing together in the same place at the same time (Cambridge Dictionary). It implies a peaceful existence of people with the same interests.
Our company is that place where our employees coexist and influence each other, hopefully positively and peacefully. It is the place where personal aspirations meet the opportunities for accomplishment.
In a traditional working organization, the average employee's working hours would range from a minimum of 8 hours to 10 or 12, depending on the line of work. This would average more time spent in a day with working colleagues than with the inner circle of friends and immediate family.
That has a profound effect on the employees, as their working environment greatly influences them, even more than their family nucleus.
It is really hard to disconnect from work when you have invested 10 or 12 hours in it daily.
We have seen a change in this paradigm in recent years, with the wide use of the internet and remote work becoming more of a norm than an exception, where applicable.
This can influence the company culture in positive and also negative ways.
- Positive. It allows the employee to stay immersed in their family while performing work. This can ease feelings of disconnect or even resentment due to long absences.
- Negative. It can create different stress factors due to split attention between work and the family, with feelings of no full commitment to both. It requires a fine balance to overcome it.
It can also influence the ability to form connections with colleagues and the company's mission and vision, as the employee is not fully exposed to it in the lack of physical presence.
Interaction. A process of communication, or reaction, between two or more people (Cambridge Dictionary).
Interaction is a conscious and unconscious process of sharing personal views and beliefs and receiving, understanding, and reacting to other people's views and beliefs.
We constantly interact with our environment and receive information that needs to be processed and understood. This is where friction might arise when the communication is not clear and transparent.
Our company environment is no different and even amplifies the need for interaction to complete all required tasks on time and accurately.
In a business environment, information flow is imperative as it can drive success or cause downfall.
Dependence. A state of needing something or someone, esp. in order to continue existing or operating (Cambridge Dictionary).
We are dependent on other people, technology, transportation, information, communication, health care, education, etc.
We might not be constantly aware of it, but we become dependent on society by becoming a member of one.
This applies to our company as well, as we are dependent on our colleagues, leaders, and employees to synchronize our performances in pursuit of achieving the company's mission.
Conclusion!
The company culture is a product of a well-established company mission, imbedded in a pursuit for the greater good, accompanied by the vision of success.
The company that creates a standard in line with its mission and vision and establishes trainings to bring their employees to the required performance level, allowing for personal advancement and development while reaching the company's mission.
The company that keeps checks and balances with a compliance process that maintains the focus on excellence and ingenuity in pursuit of the company's mission in line with all laws and regulations.
The company that has a transparent and monitored performance review and feedback process, aligned with succession planning, in pursuit of absolute empowerment for its employees in their quest for development and growth.
The company that invests time and resources in its hiring process to align the best candidates with opportunities, allowing for mutual growth.
The company that recognizes, rewards, and celebrates their employees achievements and encourages them to strive for more.
The company that tackles challenges and resolves problems with employees well-being in mind.
The company that understands and cherishes personal differences as they become a source of ingenuity and excellence.
The company that puts people first, over profit, will create a company culture that will bring profit to the company and prosperity to its employees as a result of symbiosis, acceptance, respect, professionalism, dedication, perseverance, righteousness, ingenuity, and excellence.
