Culture eats strategy for breakfast

Culture eats strategy for breakfast. You’ve probably heard this saying before, but what does it mean? It’s not just some cutesy-HR-fluff BS that you hear at a training or leadership conference and never implement — no matter how it sounds.  Putting intention into developing your company’s culture is hard. But companies who have a strong corporate culture outperform companies who don’t by 4x. So, it’s definitely something that’s worth paying some attention to.

So, what is culture?

Is it that stuff about values you display on the wall or put in your brochure? No. Those are important and making sure those will resonate with your employees is important — but that’s not the culture. 

Your company’s culture is the sum of the unspoken rules in your company — the “real way things get done around here”. 

The really hard part about that is that those “real way” rules trump all the official policies and procedures you try to put in place in the organization. These “real way” rules are not only important inside your organization, but they affect the way your customers, partners, and vendors see you as well. On top of that — they are often completely invisible to the leadership team — the very people who are put in charge of managing the culture to begin with. 

Sounds like a no-win battle, right?

It’s not. But it’s a big responsibility and a mantle you have to take on with great care and thoughtfulness. 

First — your people are watching you. Your actions matter more than your words. If you model drive, excellence, punctuality, and kindness, for instance, you can expect that your team will also model that to others. The converse is also true. If you model a lack of punctuality, missed deadlines, or a disregard for the feelings of others, you can expect that to be modeled as well. 

This also cascades to members of the team and how they are rewarded and reprimanded. Though many things can’t be done in public for legal and ethical reasons, know that people are watching when the person who does not follow the company’s stated values is being rewarded and will subsequently conclude that the values are little more than something written on the wall. Authenticity and transparency in metrics can go a long way in helping people understand what is going on — in your contracting business Estimate Rocket’s extensive accountability reporting can help with this. 

Second — be intentional about communicating why the company exists and connecting that to what it is doing. It’s often clear to members of the leadership team why a certain action is being undertaken at any given moment, but if not communicated well it can be as clear as mud to your employees. These misunderstandings can be devastating.

For example, if a company says in it’s official messaging that the customer is our most valuable asset, but then communicates inadvertently through a bunch of policies and goals that seem contrary to that, an employee may well conclude that the company doesn’t mean at all that the customer is valuable and lose faith and trust in both the company. This lack of trust and connection will disengage the employee, and then if that particular employee has a customer-facing role, that customer will feel that — ultimately resulting in a poor customer experience. 

And, since brand is what others say about you and not what you say about your company — your company culture becomes your brand. 

Third — listen and develop trust in the organization. Developing a culture of trust is difficult because people are often frightened to tell leadership the truth for fear of losing their jobs. No matter how open you believe you are, it’s often very difficult for people to trust that their leaders are looking out for them because they hold so much of their family’s safety and future in their hands.

So how do you do it? 

You listen more than you talk. It’s important to actively go to employees and truly listen to their concerns, ideas, and perspectives. Recognize that not only do they have unique talents and strengths as individuals (which, quite frankly, is why you hired them to begin with, right?)  but that they also now often have a unique view of the organization that you as a leader can no longer see. 

The longer you have been in leadership, and the “higher” up the chain you go, the further away you get from the reality of being boots on the ground. So it’s important not only to give lip service to listening, but to actively listen to the concepts and make sure that you’re hearing the “thing behind the thing” that they are saying. 

Fourth — connect people to people. Instead of trying to solve their problems for them, which is often what we try to do, help them connect to each other in order to solve issues. Leaders work hard to develop independent workers, connected to a mission and vision, who can scale the efforts by working together for a collective cause. This can only happen when people are connected to each other. If everything must be run through a manager, then expect your people to be afraid to act when it is necessary to do so. 

Your culture matters more to how you are perceived by your customers than your logo or your trucks, affects your company’s performance significantly, and is key to whether your company succeeds or fails.

So why do we spend so much time talking about tactics and so little time talking about this bigger picture of culture?

I think the answer is — because it’s hard. In order to really affect a company’s culture, we have to be honest with ourselves, our leadership teams, and our employees in a way that we might not be comfortable with. We need to work hard to walk the walk and get out of our comfort zone. And that’s tough. But if we want to be a company that survives for the long haul — that can successfully execute on our strategies, it matters.

Spend time nurturing your culture, it won’t be wasted.