Organizational Culture and Success – Using Culture to your Advantage

5 Min. Read

There is an indisputable connection between a businesses’ organizational culture and success of the business. Organizational culture is integral to transforming business culture and delivering results.

For this blog, we will take a look at ideas to improve company culture and look into some successful corporate culture examples. That is, not just organizational culture and success but how it can be harnessed to your advantage for any specific business goal – from increasing customer-centricity to improving innovation.

What’s the link between organizational culture and success?

The most important function of organizational culture is to drive the right systems, symbols, and behaviors that will deliver the results expected by the executive team and/or shareholders. But there are many ways we can measure or define the success of a business, and financial results can be merely an outcome of successful corporate culture examples within a business.

Some organizations are more concerned with being the most people-centred or customer-focused company in their industry, and their metrics will reflect this. Let’s say an enterprise believes that innovation is a critical component of its strategy, and it can get better results by developing more innovative processes and products. In successful corporate culture examples, the company would measure success by the number of innovations it brings to market.

Its focus must be on creating the systems, symbols, and behaviors that will support this – including greater collaboration, higher levels of psychological safety, and broader experimentation.

How does the link between organizational culture and success work on a project level?

There are many ideas to improve company culture, you should first focus on two-three (maximum) priorities when setting broader, organization-wide culture. This is imperative to success – trying to be too many things means you achieve nothing. This macro culture can be used, adapted, and dialled up to drive success at a project level.

Some successful corporate culture examples include companies that have the sole goal of improving operational excellence. Everything the business does is targeted at that outcome. Putting systems and symbols in place to help clarify the expected behaviors of the people working within the company. By focusing on the macro target culture, there are greater levels of autonomy, empowerment and agility to help decisions be made quickly and efficiently. The results could mean reduced costs, increased productivity and enhanced customer satisfaction.

What are the key characteristics of a successful corporate culture?

No matter the size or sector, healthy company cultures all have the following in common:

Inextricably connected to your corporate strategy. Your strategy feeds your culture, and your culture in turn enables the strategy. Defining and implementing the culture you need is contingent on having a deep understanding of the main drivers of your strategy. You can have the best strategy in the world on paper, but if you don’t know, and put in place, the supporting culture, you won’t achieve your goals.
Role modeled by executives. Senior leaders set the example for others to follow. If they walk their talk, your people will too. This can be done at an enterprise or project level; the key is that your leaders demonstrate the right mindset, belief, and behaviors to help your people navigate change.
Culture is clearly communicated internally and externally. It’s clear to everyone what your culture is because you talk about it all the time – in job interviews, as part of onboarding, and to external stakeholders (investors, analysts etc).
Aligned and integrated. The key culture carriers (systems, symbols, and behaviors) are aligned in support of the culture, and integrated seamlessly into your business.
Roadmap, measurement, and continuous improvement. Companies with thriving cultures have a clear roadmap (culture plan) and rigorous processes to measure it progress and identify areas in which it may need to evolve or adjust. After all, we can only manage what we can measure, right?

What are some ideas to improve company culture so it better supports your business goals?

Here are three tips to get you started:

Focus is key. Clearly prioritize two-three (maximum) business imperatives (derived from your strategy) – these will determine the key attributes of your target culture. Be as specific as you can. For example, if you need to be more innovative in what areas, and how do you intend to do this? The more granular you can get, the easier it will be to define the supporting culture you need.
Clarify the core of your desired culture. That means, be clear on the two-three (maximum) cultural attributes that will be translated into concrete behaviors for your people to accomplish those imperatives.
Send a clear message via your systems and symbols. Align these to your culture. For example, if you believe a culture of One Team will help you be more successful, your performance management system should give a higher weighting to the contribution towards company vs. individual goals.

How can ZRG help clients create a link between organizational culture and success in your business?

We have several ideas to improve company culture and solutions that can help at various points in this journey. All of them are simple, fast, and actionable. They include:

Discover Culture Diagnostic – to change your culture and use it to your advantage, it’s essential to first understand where you’re starting from. Our approach will unlock not just what your culture is but also why, enabling you to quickly focus and prioritize areas for change.
Talent Culture Mapping – our methodology helps your leaders define the culture you need, align on expectations, and communicate an inspirational vision to your people.
We all know the criticality of executive role modeling. Our Leading by Example program supports leaders to understand the importance of walking their talk, rapidly shift their behaviors, and increase self-awareness to underpin sustainable change.

Organizational culture and success go hand in hand, but it’s important to remember that culture’s superpower is not just its ability to help you hit your numbers, as important as they undoubtedly are. If built and maintained properly, your culture will make the difference to your organizational success on its broadest level.

We can now support you in more ways than simply culture transformation – we partner in business transformation, leadership acceleration, assessment & succession planning, executive and leadership coaching, and talent acquisition.

Get in touch to learn more and get started!