Culture Vs. Growth
When businesses grow and scale, preserving the core company culture can become an increasingly monumental challenge. What was once an effortless feat when the team was small can get overwhelming as your business expands and welcomes many new faces. According to Harvard Business Review, the bedrock beliefs and values that shape a company can be tricky to handle as it scales from a mere ten to a thousand employees. However, rest assured, it is indeed achievable.
Sustaining a strong organisational culture is key to establishing positive relationships with stakeholders and ultimately achieving growth. In a more practical sense, would you enjoy the company of a negative, demotivating person? Most likely, you wouldn’t. Similarly, this principle extends to your top-performing employees, suppliers, and clients, who base the longevity of their professional relationships on the level of positivity and cultural value you bring to the transactional exchange.
A new report by Grant Thorton states that companies with healthy cultures are 1.5 times more likely to experience revenue growth of 15 percent or more over three years yet a whopping 85% of companies fail to transform their cultures. This confirms that culture isn’t an easy aspect to manage as you grow.
Scaling Culture 101
Defining Your Core Values
Identifying your core values should be one of the first steps when starting a new business, and these core values should continue to serve as a foundation for the culture as the business grows.
For instance, Canva, the online design and publishing platform, has a culture that values creativity, inclusivity, and empowerment. Its core values include “Empower others”. This instantly informs their team and subscribers how one another will be treated at Canva.
Put Them into Practice
Core values should be a part of everyday life at the business and not just posted on the wall. This is why, it’s important to hold regular check-ins, and employees receive shoutouts for living up to core values.
This approach motivates every employee to embrace the core values and guides their behavior and decision-making.
Hire the Right People
When building a team, it’s not just about finding the most qualified candidate for the job. Culture fit should also be a top consideration. As Walt Disney once said, “you can dream, create, design and build the most wonderful place in the world… but it requires people to make the dream a reality.” To make sure that prospective employees can help make your dream a reality, during the interview process, ask questions that assess whether they share the same vision and values as the company.
Avoid rushing the hiring process, even if there’s an immediate need to fill a position. It’s important to avoid hiring based solely on a candidate’s skill or resume. Instead, take the time to find someone who can not only do the job but also fit in with the company culture and help move the business forward.
Measure the Success of Your Culture
Corporate culture is widely seen as difficult to measure objectively. While leadership teams may feel that their company culture is on the right track, the only way to truly understand whether the culture is working is to ask employees directly. However, measuring culture solely through staff surveys and interviews has limitations including biases and sampling errors. Unobtrusive Corporate Culture Analysis Tool (UCCAT) is a scientifically tested methodology for analysing and benchmarking corporate culture using publicly available data. Encouraging team leads to check in with employees and using tools like UCCAT is crucial to maintain culture as the company grows.
This is why, at POP & Co, we place a strong emphasis on building a culture that aligns with a company’s strategic vision. As your innovative operational solutions partner, we aim to empower your business to focus on wider goals and dedicate more time and resources towards growth opportunities.
Hope this sparked a renewed interest in reigniting the culture in your business. If you’re interested in learning more, get in touch with us today to discuss how we can assist you.
