Communicating Corporate Culture

What is corporate culture? A commonly accepted definition of corporate culture is the personality of an organization. Put in concrete terms, the corporate culture is "how things are done around here." The culture of a corporation encompasses how decisions are made and how those decisions are communicated to employees? It includes how rewards are determined and punishment metered out. The coporate culture defines how employees are expected to interact with one another and with customers. A corporation’s culture is established by the CEO and the senior management team. Employees will make your culture’s values and behaviors their own through both formal training and observation.

The big deal in communicating corporate culture is not the words – it is the deeds. Employees will accept your statement of values, but they will also assess your commitment to them by your behavior.  If you say you value your employees, how do you show it? If you say you want to make it easy to do business with your company, how to do reward those with innovative customer service ideas? Consistency between stated values and actions is essential in communicating the corporate culture. An excellent vehicle to communicate the abstract concepts of a corporation’s culture is through vignettes or storytelling about key people and events. During all-hands meetings, use examples of real behavior and real responses. Tell the employees what was good about the behavior and how it helped the company. On the other hand, when someone violates the organization’s core values, there should be consequences. If you ignore or reward behavior that is contrary to your stated values, your employees will learn the wrong lesson about your corporate culture.

Here are some typical corporate culture topics that may be included in policy, procedures, and practice:

• How is success measured
• How do you demonstrate respect for colleagues, customers, vendors, the community
• How do you solve customer and employee problems
• How are decisions made
• How to do encourage new ideas and innovation
• How to you weigh the relative importance of short term profitability versus long term goals
• How are achievements rewarded