Show me a successful company and I will show you a great culture behind it.Those long time Friends of Dave know that I have such a love/hate relationship with social media, particularly Facebook. While I love the concept of having the ability to easily stay connected and engaged with large networks of people from various stages in our lives, I hate how these platforms have evolved and are put into actual practice. It's like we all have an open mic in front of us and many people feel compelled to use it to broadcast whenever and for whatever purpose strikes their fancy.....That said, I recently had one of those rare social media experiences that genuinely made me smile. As I was flipping through one of my feeds, up pops a picture of 6 former work colleagues (4 of whom happen to be Friends of Dave!) out together in NYC. None of them currently work together but they all decided to make time to meet up because one was visiting from the West Coast. I was bummed I was not there (and I know I was not the only one).I've written before about how much I enjoy working with great teams, but seeing this picture reminded me that an even more important indicator that an organization will be successful can also be found in the emphasis they have on building and maintaining a strong sense of purpose and culture. I was extremely fortunate to have spent the first half of my career at a company fostered that.If you have ever worked in an organization that is truly thoughtful about culture and values it as much as work output, you know that lots of great things happen as a result. First, bonded by a shared purpose, people at these firms genuinely like each other. They are more collaborative, empathetic towards one another, and will, more often than not, put the good of the team ahead of their own self interests. Strong work cultures bring people together.What this also does, especially in fast growing organizations like the one I was with, is it becomes an organic, driving force in attracting like minded talent across the organization. It doesn't matter if someone is in finance, sales, IT, marketing, customer service or HR -- an authentically cohesive culture will effortlessly select the right people to join the team. For growing companies, this can provide almost exponential boosts to productivity and achievement. Strong work cultures become a competitive advantage.Finally, I have see this first hand: companies that continually invest in developing their cultures see higher rates of employee satisfaction and, in turn, higher customer retention rates and referrals. It's pretty simple: when people like going to work and feel valued by their co-workers and management, they inevitably go the extra mile for customers. That leads to better problem solving, more innovation and a stellar customer experience. Strong work cultures lead to satisfied stakeholders.Ultimately the commitment to building and maintaining a winning culture (which is hard as a company becomes successful and grows) must be authentic. It's easy to plaster company mission statements and corporate values on walls and employee handbooks -- it is much harder to actually to commit to live by those ideals every day from the top of the organization down. You can't fake company culture, particularly now as the workforce is increasingly becoming distributed and remote. And your culture is like any asset: if you leave it unattended or take it for granted (no matter how strong it once was), it will quickly diminish in value.Think about it -- who doesn't want to be a part of an organization where you like and respect co-workers, you can easily attract talented people to join you and make things better, and your customers love what you do and how you improve their daily lives? If your company isn't doing all three, it's either time to affect some change Friends, or time to look elsewhere. Life is just too short.Now that I am older, seeing that photo in my timeline gave a much bigger appreciation for what my colleagues and I helped build years ago. Some of the closest people to me today (which includes some of you getting this) came into my life simply because we all happened to get hired to work for the same company around the same time years ago. In addition to the many successes and failures that we shared in the office, along the way we have also shared dance parties, holiday parties, Super Bowl parties, birthday parties, going away parties, bachelor parties, weddings, funerals, BBQs, vacations, the births of children and all of the crazy twists and turns that occur outside of the office in our real lives. The best work cultures can create a sense of belonging that enrich people's lives and make them happier, more productive and successful -- even after they leave the company.I'll leave you with that my Friends. Enjoy this last weekend in July and the links below. Going to try to ease up on the preambles in August.XOXODave
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Friends of Dave #135: Culture Club
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Show me a successful company and I will show you a great culture behind it.Those long time Friends of Dave know that I have such a love/hate relationship with social media, particularly Facebook. While I love the concept of having the ability to easily stay connected and engaged with large networks of people from various stages in our lives, I hate how these platforms have evolved and are put into actual practice. It's like we all have an open mic in front of us and many people feel compelled to use it to broadcast whenever and for whatever purpose strikes their fancy.....That said, I recently had one of those rare social media experiences that genuinely made me smile. As I was flipping through one of my feeds, up pops a picture of 6 former work colleagues (4 of whom happen to be Friends of Dave!) out together in NYC. None of them currently work together but they all decided to make time to meet up because one was visiting from the West Coast. I was bummed I was not there (and I know I was not the only one).I've written before about how much I enjoy working with great teams, but seeing this picture reminded me that an even more important indicator that an organization will be successful can also be found in the emphasis they have on building and maintaining a strong sense of purpose and culture. I was extremely fortunate to have spent the first half of my career at a company fostered that.If you have ever worked in an organization that is truly thoughtful about culture and values it as much as work output, you know that lots of great things happen as a result. First, bonded by a shared purpose, people at these firms genuinely like each other. They are more collaborative, empathetic towards one another, and will, more often than not, put the good of the team ahead of their own self interests. Strong work cultures bring people together.What this also does, especially in fast growing organizations like the one I was with, is it becomes an organic, driving force in attracting like minded talent across the organization. It doesn't matter if someone is in finance, sales, IT, marketing, customer service or HR -- an authentically cohesive culture will effortlessly select the right people to join the team. For growing companies, this can provide almost exponential boosts to productivity and achievement. Strong work cultures become a competitive advantage.Finally, I have see this first hand: companies that continually invest in developing their cultures see higher rates of employee satisfaction and, in turn, higher customer retention rates and referrals. It's pretty simple: when people like going to work and feel valued by their co-workers and management, they inevitably go the extra mile for customers. That leads to better problem solving, more innovation and a stellar customer experience. Strong work cultures lead to satisfied stakeholders.Ultimately the commitment to building and maintaining a winning culture (which is hard as a company becomes successful and grows) must be authentic. It's easy to plaster company mission statements and corporate values on walls and employee handbooks -- it is much harder to actually to commit to live by those ideals every day from the top of the organization down. You can't fake company culture, particularly now as the workforce is increasingly becoming distributed and remote. And your culture is like any asset: if you leave it unattended or take it for granted (no matter how strong it once was), it will quickly diminish in value.Think about it -- who doesn't want to be a part of an organization where you like and respect co-workers, you can easily attract talented people to join you and make things better, and your customers love what you do and how you improve their daily lives? If your company isn't doing all three, it's either time to affect some change Friends, or time to look elsewhere. Life is just too short.Now that I am older, seeing that photo in my timeline gave a much bigger appreciation for what my colleagues and I helped build years ago. Some of the closest people to me today (which includes some of you getting this) came into my life simply because we all happened to get hired to work for the same company around the same time years ago. In addition to the many successes and failures that we shared in the office, along the way we have also shared dance parties, holiday parties, Super Bowl parties, birthday parties, going away parties, bachelor parties, weddings, funerals, BBQs, vacations, the births of children and all of the crazy twists and turns that occur outside of the office in our real lives. The best work cultures can create a sense of belonging that enrich people's lives and make them happier, more productive and successful -- even after they leave the company.I'll leave you with that my Friends. Enjoy this last weekend in July and the links below. Going to try to ease up on the preambles in August.XOXODave