Culture
Develop a culture that aligns with your passion and business goals.
Do you have a mission statement or core values and if you do, are you certain your employees know and understand what they are? Does your organization function and live by them? Do you lead and live by them? Your culture is one that you feel; it’s the vibe you get when you walk in the door, it’s the engagement you can see, it’s the leadership and the way employees are valued, it lights up your entire system – it’s why people want to work with you and for you. It needs to be defined, guided, loved, and lived by.
Culture is one that you feel; it’s the vibe you get when you walk in the door (or join a zoom call), it’s the engagement you can see, it’s the leadership and the way employees are valued, it lights up your entire system, you don’t’ even need words to describe it – its why people want to work with you and for you.
From the moment of inception, a company’s culture begins to develop and will continue to solidify and engrain itself into everything you do as an organization. If you do not define and guide it, it will define itself whether you are on board or not. It is who your company really is and how your team members and customers really feel about you.
While mission, vision, and core values are a critical foundation to culture, it needs to be supported with strategy, structure, and sustained intentional effort. Even organizations that have strong defined behavioral norms that drive their culture, must be vigilant in organizational subcultures – groups, leaders or team members that differ from the rest of the company that undermine and erode the foundation.
There are many means of driving and maintaining a high-performance company culture, from recruitment, retention, engagement & recognition programs to core business activities, processes, and strategies. A company must build a solid foundation in order to have a sustainable future.
Do you have a mission and vision statement or core values and if you do, are you certain your employees know and understand what they are? Does your organization function and live by them? Do you lead and live by them?
A mission statement is simple and comes from the heart. It states purpose and defines what you do giving everyone in the organization common goals. Think of it as a navigational tool providing direction to team members and customers.
A vision statement is a clear definitive statement of what the organization wants to accomplish, and what the world will look like once it has accomplished its mission. It is why you do what you do and should be compelling and presented in a way that inspires the people you lead.
Core values shape your culture and are the collective heartbeat of the organization. It will define how team members behave, interact, and treat each other and customers – It is how you do it. Core values help align the company to support its mission and achieve its vision. Most importantly, they cannot be BS or no one will believe them. You must lead, hire, and fire by them.
Are your team members happy? Are they engaged or disengaged? The importance of team member engagement cannot be overstated. High levels of engagement promote retention of talent, foster customer loyalty and improve organizational performance thereby directly affecting an organization’s financial health and profitability.
Engagement is based on trust, integrity and two-way communication between leadership and team members.
Low engagement can be caused by many things including lack of recognition, unalignment with the company’s vision and mission, distrust of managers, lack of team cohesion or not feeling valued or motivated.
Team member engagement is especially difficult in today’s hybrid workforce with remote and in-person workers. This new landscape has changed of how leaders interact with team members and team members with each other when a workforce is physically less connected to each other.
When is the last time you asked your employees for feedback? Often their willingness to share open and honest feedback comes easier with someone outside of the organization who can then analyze their responses and recommend actionable steps without bias.
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Tamara Knapp Advisory LLC
Based in Novi, Michigan
Serving both startups and established clients.
Office: (248) 301-9699
Email: letsgo@tamaraknappadvisory.com