I am Changing the Corporate Culture Come Hell or High Water!!!

The number one element of business survival in the very near future will be the ability to influence your own corporate culture.

This aspect some predict will become the life blood of all organisations in the near future others say it’s already becoming a critical indicator informing production and profit margins.

How farfetched an idea that corporate culture can make or break a company, really?

Maybe we should look at the bigger picture, and only then draw some distinctions that will inform us as to how close to home this will peg, if it is truly, or will become a reality beckoning.

Don’t compete with internal rivals, take the initiative with labour, lead them around by the nose, or they will you.  Make them irrelevant. Labour has a voice, but when this voice become a political one you are in for hard times. If you have internal rivalry from labour elements, then it’s time to take the bull by the horns, and shake some sense into him. When labour mobilizes and politicise issues, then it’s because they need leadership, and have take the intuitive from you, because of a lack of leadership. The signs and symptoms are really obvious; they will start threatening, then withholding service, and then demanding, intimidating and then open confrontation and even violence will ensue.

Easier said than done, or is it? Companies have long since engaged with employees in head to head engagements on wage for labour issues. Better working condition and other labour issues, to name but a few.  Since we have become unionised and labour rights inclined we have lost most of our grip on the employees, and have had to find alternative methods of getting the most out of our employees. This is not what this article is about, it’s about creating a sound, normative culture…that will serve both side well, labour and employer. But there needs to be a natural order, balance and respect in place before these action can take place.

This is a huge paradigm shift.

In order for this to happen we have to grip the organisation by the jugular; and create a new value curve. That will influence how we manage and influence corporate culture. We need to address a few points in order to be in a position to address corporate culture…

By examining the value curve we embrace;

1. Reduce the factors that dictate the power balance between employer and employee;
   1. By looking at best practices
   2. Industry standard
   3. Mitigation of identified risk elements; strikes, layoffs, HIV aids, socio economic, political issues, and public transport etc internal and external influence, must be identified, prioritised, and address as best possible.
2. Create the factors that will give us leverage and the initiative to deal with all aspects of labour.
   1. Enforce discipline as a matter of daily order and function – consistently and fairly
   2. Offer benefits no one else can equal
   3. Opportunities for growth
3. Raise the standards and reward accordingly
   1. Incentives, overtime, bonuses, performance bonuses, time off etc
4. Eliminate waist, and factors that contribute to friction
   1. Email and telephone abuse
   2. Late coming etc..
   3. None performers, slackers, bottom feeders
   4. Raise the bar – raise the pay grading
   5. Define what is a job well done
   6. What is expected and how will one be rewarded and appraised, on paper.

Creating a new value curve; emits new hope. People need hope to cope with the daily reality; they need to feel that they amount to something greater than them, and are part of its creation. The value curve creates focus on critical under currents that effect how culture in the company grows and flows, into production, and leadership.

Then no one can  ride management like a rodeo horse;

In order to break with tradition, you need to create focus; all employees must come face to face with their new reality, and start absorbing it and living it, one bump at a time. Don’t let anyone hypothesise and dramatize any aspect. You tell them how it is, will be, and has to be. No funny business. Then you surprise them and show them what can be done how to do it and how to get the results… face it people, seeing is believing.  Get them out of denial and onto solid ground, let them see their feet again, so that they know they can stand, on their own two feet, and walk, let alone run. What this implies is, let people solve their work station problems themselves; you have to give control here to get control at the higher tiers back – culture.  There is always a need to revise and review strategy – never get stuck in conformity. Even if we manage by statistic and statically everything is 100%, get down to the ground and gain the experience that inform the statistics to make sure it’s a true reflection…

It’s all about perception management; closing the gap between where we were, and where we want to be, takes effort. Labour is renowned for employing guerrilla tactics, and using their “wear them down strategies”, by stone-walling and delaying all forms of change and implantation, except as much.  These good initiatives, reasoning being people will lose their perceived power, as leaders and unions. Then all is lost they own us again… as i said; it’s all perception and denial…

In summary, take care of your “life blood”, your corporate culture, and play the political game, if not it might take care of you in unexpected and challenging ways…

Now – Read the book or Ebook; Read more in my new book Strategic Management, The Radical Revolutionary Strategic Management Matrix for Predators by Reinier Geel, now available at Trafford;http://www.trafford.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?Book=339320