When I Googled “what is corporate culture,” the first response was, “Corporate culture refers to the beliefs and behaviors that determine how a company’s employees and management interact and handle outside business transactions. Often, corporate culture is implied, not expressly defined, and develops organically over time from the cumulative traits of the people the company hires.”
I thought that was a pretty good answer. Early in my business career, I never gave it much thought. During my first stint as an executive of a medium-sized company, I thought of infusing my company’s personnel with a collective sense of pride and undying dedication using well-timed motivational speakers and fancy slogans; in hindsight, how foolish. To be fair, in the 70’s and 80’s the notion of corporate culture being critical to success in business was not something on which the management consultant witch doctors (I was one once) focused. Instead, we were told that we must devise that uplifting mission and vision statements full of platitudes (a platitude is a phrase or statement that you would add, “well, I would think so”). Vision and mission statements chock-full of obvious phrases and cliches defined the company and its culture.
As defined above, corporate culture is all about beliefs and behaviors that are systemic within the organization cultivated and nurtured over time. In a small business, the company takes on the personality of its owner/operator. Larger company culture tends to reflect the collective actions of its leadership. For example, Intel’s Andy Grove built a corporate culture known for developing world-leading innovation, excellence, and productivity by introducing OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). The persistent actions of corporate leadership and the attitudes, biases, morality, or immaturity can profoundly affect a business’s success or failure. Given that, corporate culture is something that should be defined, developed, and managed.
About 20 years ago, I was rummaging through the bargain bin of a used bookstore, a hobby of mine. I came upon a thin paperback called ICE. ICE stood for Internal Consulting Expertise. For some reason, I picked it up and bought it. Little risk as the price was only a dollar. When I read the book, I found the most practical and effective method of building culture within an organization I had ever seen.
Essentially ICE is a set of actionable values that harmonize behaviors within an organization to guide interactions between personnel, customers, and other stakeholders. These values work best when developed and agreed upon by all members within the company to achieve specific objectives. For example, improve customer satisfaction, elevate employee morale, increase productivity, reduce downtime or accelerate sales, etc. ICE also helps organizations map where they are related to living up to the optimal values, whether there is room for improvement, not delivering, or avoidance.
The basic premise is that feelings generate all actions, whether positive or negative. Decisions regarding buying, staying with a company, cooperation, taking the initiative, sharing ideas, meeting deadlines, or dedication to quality are all made or heavily influenced by feelings. One can argue the business decisions are made based on facts and information. However, many times a customer went elsewhere because they felt neglected, or an employee left because they felt frustrated or used, or the team missed deadlines because they didn’t care or a customer felt compelled to give referrals because the company made them feel important. Often feelings don’t necessarily line up with the facts. It is therefore vitally important we pay attention to values and how they generate feelings.
Setting up actionable values for an organization is deceptively simple but requires a lot of work. First, the organization should develop a set of shared values within the organization and then decide how to apply them in the various operating units. For example, the shared values would be interpreted slightly differently for the challenges facing sales and marketing, operations, IT, investor relations, or suppliers.
