Is Company Culture That Important?

If you were a fly on the wall, what would you hear, see and experience about your company’s culture?


Why has “company culture” become the buzz word that it is today? I find in business, buzz words are based from a reactionary position. When your workforce leaves you in an unprecedented rate, you create or appoint a task force that needs to deal with this growing trend and high cost of workforce shrinkage.


Like most business ideas, we all like to throw outward solutions at our problems only to realize that change, true change, begins with the inner solution. Before a result is experienced from the outside or what we see, hear and experience, transformation effectively begins on the inside.


I’ve always wondered why some companies are honored with being named “100 Best Companies to Work for”, while others are not. Well the simple answer may the actual answer, you, as an organization have embraced the idea that your people are your biggest asset within your business. Your employees care about your company culture because you’ve shown that your care about them. How simple is that?


Well simple is not always easy. An organization, can have an inner battle within your set of values that don’t recognize the importance of valued workers.  Or you may have leaders that still embrace the old leadership style and thoughts of “it’s my way or the highway” because that was the way that they were treated when they rose up the ranks.


Fortunately, we have had the pleasure to call many of the “100 Best Companies to Work For”, our valued clients. Many of them have hired us to facilitate our award winning cooking team building experiences and have benefited greatly from this unique approach to building work teams. When asking individuals from these work teams, “Why is your company considered one of the best to work for.”, and nearly each answer was the same, “we feel appreciated”.


The fact that their leadership chose to invest their resources into a day of team development shows everyone involved that they matter. Employees and company members are not blind. They know genuine appreciation versus just lip service. It begins at the top, not in the Culture Department, the genuine commitment to appreciation of your team members.


Your positive company culture begins from the sincere belief that everyone matters in your organization and that without them, your organization is just a name, an empty entity and a shell of it’s potential. Yes, every company needs to have a place to manage and organize your team culture. But the real magic begins at the top of the chain of leadership and organically goes viral throughout your company. Simply, it’s the acceptance that the “Be-ing” of your organization begins with honoring your biggest asset, your team!

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