The 12 factors illustrated above make up the unique culture of every business. Some factors may play a critical role in the day-to-day activities of your business, while others don’t come into play as often. If you want to have a comprehensive understanding of your corporate culture (and how to use it to attract top talent), you have to evaluate what that culture is made of.
Leadership
Culture starts at the top. Your CEO is responsible for setting the tone for your entire organization.
Strategy
Your culture is shaped by your corporate strategy. The unique mix of business strategies employed by your company makes an indelible mark on your culture. The four chief business strategies are:
1) Operational Performance
2) Product Excellence
3) Market Growth
4) Financial Maximization
Change
A start-up will have a very different culture than a Fortune 500 company. Where you are in your business’s lifecycle plays a big role.
Competition
All businesses compete for something. It could be sales, recruits, investment dollars, or market share. The prize you covet says a lot about your culture.
Industry
The ebbs and flows of the industry you’re in make a huge difference. In the promotional products world, the summer is slow and we’re scrambling for holiday orders in the fall.
Resources
Sitting on a ton of cash or barely scraping by? The resources that you have (or don’t have) make your company what it is.
Resistance
Is your company open to change? Creating change is hard enough without internal obstacles. With them, it’s nearly impossible.
Management
Great managers build great teams, perform when it counts, and develop the new talent needed to grow. Lousy ones just collect a paycheck and bug you about TPS reports.
Fit
Are you hiring the right people? Can they excel in your business? Making hiring mistakes is very expensive and damages company morale.
Capacity
What capacity do you have for change? Can it be rapid, or does it have to be slow? Planning processes dictate how flexible your business can be both now and in the future.
Performance
Are things on track, or are you behind where you expected to be? How do you respond when things fall behind? In our experience, this is the critical deciding factor in determining your corporate culture.
Timing
Is your business driven by deadlines, or is it more casual? It takes a certain person to thrive under a deadline, so hire carefully.
For more information on corporate culture read our articles on “The 3 Questions That Determine Cultural Fit” and “How To Maintain Your Company Culture While Hiring”.
