Culture and Your Company
What kind of environment does your company operate in and to what extent does this affect your overall productivity? How would you describe your company? Fun? Uptight? Aggressive? Company culture is the personality of your company and is comprised of a number of things including its mission, vision and values.
David Mbatha has over 16 years experience working with a wide range of International and East African companies, transforming their finance, operations and strategy. We discussed with him company culture and the ways it affects productivity.
Some company cultures are intentionally created by the leaders while others develop as a combination of the personalities of the employees. Either way, it is of utmost importance for you to understand your company culture and assess whether it helps you achieve the long-term vision for your businesses. Company culture ranges from being customer-centric to being team-based — where employee involvement is encouraged at all levels.
Why Company Culture is Important
Company culture is of increasing importance — particularly in East Africa, because of our growing young population, with 60% under the age of 24. While this age group still works to earn money, they are more motivated by the purpose and culture of the companies they work for.
“The culture, values and aspirations of companies will become more important as we go into the next millennium,” David said, “This is in stark contrast to the generation before who valued job security more and could work with the same employer for 25 years.”
Retaining this talent therefore will require more than salary incentives. Are there enough challenges to keep them motivated and interested? Are they growing as individuals? It is important to develop your employees because they need to feel like they are growing and contributing to the business.
“They should be able to see how they are growing personally and not just financially because they will always be able to find an employer who will pay more than you.” David said.
However, not all SMEs can afford this. They should creatively find ways to stretch their people and give them opportunities to learn. This might be by rotating jobs or allowing them to run departments while the leaders are on sabbatical.
“You should also listen to your team to understand what they want to get out of their careers and decide what you can realistically offer.” David said.
Understanding and Communicating your Company’s Culture
Company Culture is comprised of a number of elements including the company’s strategy, mission, vision and values. How do these translate to your people and feed into your culture? For example, if your strategy is to put your customers first, the culture needs to be one that allows you to do that.
“SMEs rarely focus on their company culture because they are mostly trying to survive. They are able to get away with this because they are more flexible than larger companies.” David said, “However, they should still give serious thought to their company culture in the long term.”
A company’s values are its guiding principles. They are the basis on which members of the company make decisions, plan strategies and interact with each other. The leadership of the company creates these values and needs to live them because they will shape the company’s culture.
“Your vision, mission and values all feed into the company culture.”
For example, if learning is one of the values of a company, people development would be ingrained in its culture as a result of this value. A company whose vision is to be East Africa’s leading technology company would have a culture of innovation and would need to remain abreast with the trends in the region in order for it to achieve this vision. Culture is influenced by the company aspirations and how these translate into practice. The leader of the company holds its vision and needs to inspire the employees to buy into it. Together, they should decide how best to realize it.
“The leader has the responsibility to decide what kind of culture the company should have,” David said, “This can be collaboratively decided with the team, but the leader makes the ultimate decision.”
In order to effectively communicate your company culture, you need to be clear about what it is. There are various ways you can do this including online cultural assessment questionnaires or cultural focus groups. Once you have understood what your culture is, have an honest discussion on whether it helps drive your company’s aspirations. Should you decide to change your culture, determine what you want it to be and articulate this through your strategy, vision and mission.
*Many thanks to David for contributing to this article!
