Become a Culture Warrior!

Maintaining the culture of the organization should be the number one priority for any CEO. A study by the American Quality and Participation Association identified the most important attributes of choosing an employer: Salary 7%; Flex Hours 10%; Benefits 14%; and Responsibility 24%...yet Culture at 45% accounted for nearly as much as the rest of the field. Lou Gerstner led IBM’s turnaround in the 1990’s – from losing $8 billion in 1993 to making $8 billion in 2002, and creating over 65,000 jobs. He said, “If I could have chosen not to tackle the IBM culture head-on, I probably wouldn’t have. My bias coming in was toward strategy, analysis and measurement. In comparison, changing the attitude and behaviors of hundreds of thousands of people is very, very hard. Yet I came to see in my time at IBM that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game – it is the game.”


Become your company’s Culture Warrior by:
· Creating your dream or vision for the organization or team
· Establishing the values that will help guide decision-making
· Communicating your dream and values to all stakeholders

We don’t mean simply plastering the dream and values on a wall or on the back of business cards! Take every opportunity to communicate your dream again and again to everyone who touches your organization – employees, potential employees, stockholders, suppliers and customers. Once your culture is in place, be persistent and consistent. Never ever compromise your dream or values…once you do, you’re dead. This is a journey that is well worth your time. Don’t just celebrate your culture, live it. Remember, culture is not just one aspect of the game it is – it is the game!

We're Back!

We can’t believe it has been three months since our last posting. We have been very busy with keynote presentations and working on our fourth book. Just this week, we sent the manuscript to McGraw-Hill! (more about the book in upcoming blogs).

We would like to address a comment a reader had made regarding the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts staffing policy. The reader indicated that they had “massive layoffs” due to this economy. It is true that the Four Seasons delayed or cancelled several construction projects resulting in layoffs. Our sources at the Four Seasons tell us that there have been additional layoffs for certain positions, but that they have not compromised their commitment to “staff to an extraordinary level of service.” The point is that in troubled economic times, layoffs are often unavoidable. In too many organizations, however, the first reaction is to cut frontline workers and compromise service levels rather than evaluating positions that do not have a direct customer interface.