When Good Culture Goes Bad

By Steve Staub (Staub Manufacturing Solutions) 

Every company has a culture.  Some are good, some are bad.  Some companies have multiple sub-cultures and the overall organization can have both good and bad culture!  Have you ever taken the time to step back and review your company culture?  Are you even familiar with the word culture?  Now I’m not talking about when the doctor sticks the Q-tip in your mouth to check for Strep throat or something like that.  I am talking about company culture, but what is culture?  Oh sure Webster’s had a much fancier way of saying it, but the basic definition of culture is “the way we do things around here."

It’s tough being in business today, frankly there is a lot of stuff to deal with.  Much of the issues in our companies come from the outside and from many different sources.  However many of us get busy looking at the outside influences on our business, but one area many of us neglect to really look into is the inside of our own companies.

When every company starts the founders have dreams of utopia.  The customers love you, the suppliers love you, the entire world loves you.  Birds actually sing for you when you come to work each day!  You’ve got the best people and everyone is working as a team… then you start hiring people and more people.  But you don’t know how to hire anyone, you just take the first guy that walks through the door that has the skills you need.  He has a bad attitude, but you only work with him a few hours a day and he shouldn’t affect the shop that much!  Then you hire several other folks with bad attitudes and your attendance, discipline and a host of other problems like quality and on-time delivery begin to grow!  Then one day you realize that you have a culture that has gone bad.  Frankly this is a common problem, it happens all the time!

I was first exposed to culture at a course I took at Aileron many years ago, and wow was it ever eye opening!  From the moment I first learned about culture I realized the culture we had at the time frankly was bad.  It took several years and a lot of changes but today we are proud of our company culture.  Today we have a culture of collaboration and teamwork.  We hire for attitude rather than skill and take the interviewing process very slowly.  We have the best team around, but it took a long time to get there.  I can tell you from experience that the journey has been worth it!

If you are interested in learning more about company culture you may want to consider several upcoming programs at Aileron.

The first program is:

Interactive Conversation: Aligning People and Culture to Drive Results
Tuesday, June 26th | 8:30 AM to 10:00 AM

Culture and success: You can't have one without the other. In this 90-minute event inspired by his best-selling book Becoming A Category of One, author and speaker Joe Calloway takes you inside the mindset of today's most effective leaders. You'll learn how business leaders from Apple, Southwest Airlines, Starbucks, and P&G align people and culture to drive strategy and create results. And, you'll learn how you can do it, too.  

$70 per person, includes a copy of Joe's book
Learn more and register online

The second program is:

When Good Culture Goes Bad

Thursday, July 12^th I 8:30 AM to 11:00 AM

Facilitated by Steve Staub

For more information and to register online follow this link:

http://aileron.org/courseLeadingTheSpirit.jsp?navId=4&subNavId=7