My “Key Learning” today is for you to “make culture a core asset of your business“. What brought this to mind?
This week I led a meeting for a client focussing on their Culture and Values. This client business is experiencing rapid growth and is at the leading edge of a really exciting technology shift in a major industry, so things are changing very, very fast for them. Some eighteen months ago their CEO saw this and saw the value of focussing on their Culture as one of the “operating systems” for their business and one that will remain consistent and so bring stability to the business, their people, and their clients. We, therefore, engaged closely with the business in 2021 to design and define its culture, a project that led to them printing their “code” in a book given to all team members.
Our meeting this week was to take time to focus on this roughly one year later with some key team members. I met some of these team members at the meeting for the first time and two things showed up for me. First, each of them is hugely talented and is a massive asset to the client’s business. Second, a key reason they chose to join this business and grow with them was the Culture of the business!
This client, as in many industries and sectors, is finding a huge mismatch in supply and demand as they seek to get more great staff to support their growth. Their investment in and commitment to their Culture as a core Operating System has paid huge dividends and will continue to do so for them.
Kudos to this client and today I share this as a strong encouragement to you as a leader to invest in defining and designing your own cultural operating system.