Company culture - people like us do things like this

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You might have read statements like Peter Drucker's

Culture eats strategy for breakfast

And that's because culture is at the heart of whether you get to where you want to go or not. It will drive practically everything you do in your organization.

Culture is about being able to describe how people like us do things like this. It's the company's personality as well as the organization's mission, values, ethics, expectations and goals.

Let me give you an example:

1298 ambulance service in India

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Mumbia, a city of 17 million people at the time had a very limited number of ambulances. So in 2002 Ziqitza Healthcare, a company based in Mumbai, India, wanted to create the first accessible, 24/7, high-quality emergency medical care for all citizens of India. Rich or poor, it didn't matter.

Naturally, they requested a very well known number for emergency services from the phone company: 9-1-1. The phone company was asking for a bribe for them to have that number. The folks at Ziqitza Healthcare refused as it was not in their company culture to pay bribes even for important matters.

1298 might not be as intuitive as 911, but it was THAT important these young professionals that they weren't willing to pay a bribe for it.

We get the culture we deserve

A common trap we, as leaders, fall into is getting so caught up in surviving, or growing or keeping things moving, that we sacrifice culture.

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Let's say we have a very talented editor working for you that happens to also be inappropriate with women in the workplace. The cost of replacing him is high in the short term. You'll sacrifice the quality of the work delivered and you will probably get backlogged. But if you don't replace this employee, you will pay the price of him undermining who you are every single day.

We get the culture we deserve.

If we celebrate a big sale even though the sales rep cut some corners, that will become part of your culture.

If you publicly shoot down someone's creative idea that didn't work, that becomes part of your culture.

If you lead your team by telling them things are done exactly how the boss says they should be done, don't be surprised when there is no sign of creative problem solving because doing as you are told has now become part of your culture.

Culture at Yellow Cherry Media

Our marketing agency (Hive account@yellowcherry Media) is still young, but we want to start defining our company culture.

Something I'd like to implement tomorrow as part of my business's culture is cleanliness and order. With your workspace, with the way we handle media files on employees' computers and company servers.

Editors are starting to get a bit messy and we need to be able to find things quickly even if we're not on our own computer. So in tomorrow's team meeting, we'll go over how we should store media so that things are easy for us and our coworkers to find.

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