Everybody talks a lot about culture. Stop me when you're confident you've head the cultural clichés' listed below in your own company, in discussions with employees from other companies, or in the business periodicals:
-"We've got a culture of competition"
-"Our culture is one of consensus-building and inclusion"
-"Our creed is to reward the performers"
-"Our culture is fanatical about focusing on the customer".
-"We're number two, so we try harder"
Are those phrases true or tired clichés' in the companies who use them? As with everything else in life, it depends. For a single or a few key focus points to define your culture, you're whole company has to be engaged and mobilized behind the words.
As you might expect, companies have cultures that transcend mission statements, and the behavioral DNA that defines a company's culture can become an albatross over time, even if it provided a competitive advantage at an earlier stage in the company's lifestyle.
Case in point - General Motors. Read this unbelievable snippet from Alex Taylor at Fortune:
"Back in 2004, when it was still relatively flush, General Motors invited automotive journalists to the South of France for a three-day "global product seminar." The idea was that writers like me would drive new cars, consume loads of free food and wine, pal around with executives, and develop favorable opinions about GM.
Still a little jet-lagged, I arranged to drive with chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner in a yellow Corvette. Our route would take us from the Four Seasons resort in Provence, where we were staying, through the French countryside and on to the Paul Ricard race circuit near Marseilles in time for lunch. My job was to navigate while Wagoner drove, but I used the face time to pepper him with questions rather than pay attention to the route book.
Polite and good-humored as usual, Wagoner mostly ignored my directions and followed the car in front of us. Two hours later we found ourselves back at the hotel. I had been navigating from the wrong map, and the car in front of us, driven by Chinese journalists, was just as lost as we were. Lunch would be delayed while we hurriedly made our way to the track, meaning I had effectively kidnapped the chairman of General Motors (GM, Fortune 500) for three hours.
Sure, we had been tailed the whole time by Wagoner's security detail, but it remained behind at a respectful distance and never stopped to ask us where we were going. What I learned from the incident were several things.
First, never underestimate the ability of a know-it-all journalist to get it wrong. And second, at some point good manners and civility become a liability rather than an asset.
WOW. What a great story to underscore how the culture of a company can be the roadblock to the change it needs to stay alive. For what it's worth, Taylor goes on to describe how the GM culture differs from that of Ford and Chrysler, and how it's culture has prevented it from making the changes necessary to compete globally:
"After three decades of covering the auto industry, I've learned that Ford (F, Fortune 500) executives tend to be scrappers skilled at bare-knuckle office politics, while the top brass at Chrysler traffic in bravado and charisma. Not at GM. Guys like Wagoner set the tone: smart, sincere, diligent - modern-day Eagle Scouts.
But in working for the largest company in the industry for so long, they became comfortable, insular, self-referential, and too wedded to the status quo - traits that persist even now, when GM is on the precipice. They prefer stability over conflict, continuity over disorder, and GM's way over anybody else's. They believe that hard work will overcome adversity, and that tomorrow will be better than today - despite four decades of evidence to the contrary."
If you read one external article this week, make sure it's this one. The company culture references are deep, and there are lessons on succession planning and company politics we all can learn from.
Last thought - what's in your company's DNA that is going to limit your ability to compete in the next year? What about you individually? What is it about your preferences, personality type, motivations, etc., that's going to stop you from achieving what you want or ultimately will put you in harms way?
Hint - find a "driver" (coach, mentor) who will stop you if it's obvious you are lost.
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