The culture within companies is generally viewed as a flat relation the employees and teams have with the company whether they are engaged or unengaged. It’s fundamentally different than this approach, culture is defined by everyday operations, views, beliefs, values, and actions within the company and teams. This very approach is why all teams and members of a company need to learn how to define company culture.
How do average companies define culture? By statements, beliefs, and systems that a high-level executive deems appropriate for their vision. However, this needs to change, what it genuinely means, is a vital system of how teams work and how actions are set apart from others in their space. This is constantly changing, so how do we define company culture while it’s never at one solid standing point?
Craft from Genuine Ideas
What you can’t do when creating a valuable culture statement, is fluff up a bunch of unrelatable content that will never be supported by your company. Start by crafting your statements from ideas and genuine principles that your team’s actions will reflect upon.
If you have a heavy expectation and reliance on collaboration, craft your statement upon ideas of real-world collaboration and gettings things done together. Instead of using fluffy team-work ideas and productivity upsells, use real-world collaboration mindsets that your team will actually support when they are actually working.
Focus on the People
Problems with company cultures generally all relate from not enough focus on the people and individual’s skill sets, talents, and value deliverance they are bringing to the business. After all, a business is nothing without the talented and vision centered people growing the business forward.
Though don’t get blindsided by having a sole focus on people, as an individual focus can only reach so far. There’s a limit on how much you can focus on talents and skills of a few people, then you can when you’re with an entire team. Key summary, don’t neglect a simple balance of this and always remember to focus on your valuable people at the end of the day.
Know the Value Behind it All
Leaders of companies need to know the value behind their vision and statements in a statement of culture. Instead of just publishing culture statements and belief, we need to have a reliance on bringing value to our teams, instead of simply defining it in ways that are flat with little to no value.
Cater to the value deliverance to your team with the culture, and how it will affect working and growing within the company. Always analyze that value and convey that out into your definition of your company culture.