In Change the Culture, Change the Game, Tom Smith and Roger Connors write:
“Either you manage your culture, or it will manage you.”
In simple terms, “culture” refers to how people think, act and get things done in your company. It is comprised of three components:
- Experiences, which foster beliefs
- Beliefs, which influence actions
- Actions, which produce results
Few managers excel at optimizing culture. While they’re aware of surveys that reveal two-thirds of employees are disengaged, they don’t know how to break down culture into readily identifiable components. They get lost in emotions, feelings, beliefs, soft skills and fuzzy thinking.
Optimizing your culture should command as much attention as performance metrics, operations, finances, sales and every other organizational discipline.
By harnessing the power of culture, you can change the game by growing faster than your competitors, surviving a bad economy, improving your value proposition and outperforming all previous metrics.