Culture: The Be All End All in Every Organization

As a leader I’m sure you’ve heard many, many times the importance of culture. Since you’ve heard about culture before, why am I writing about it again? Because in most organizations culture is still not intentional. It is not given the attention it deserves.

For those who wonder what all the hype is about culture, and wonder, beyond what shows up in your yogurt, what it really is, here’s my definition: Culture is how work gets done and how people are treated in an organization.

Donald Sull, of MIT Sloan Management School and CultureX, cited a study in the recent MIT Sloan Work/25 Conference in which 1,400 CFO’s and CEO’s were asked to identify the strongest drivers of profitability. Culture was at the top of the list – above strategy, operations, and regulatory environment. Culture informs how organizations design and implement strategy and operations, and, therefore has the most outsized impact on financial growth of organizations than any other factor.

In March of this year Michael Bush, CEO, Great Places to Work, sat down with Delta Airlines CEO Ed Bastian at a Delta Leadership Conference to hear about what Delta does to create and maintain a great culture for their employees. Delta continues to be considered one of the most popular and trusted airlines amongst travelers due to the level of service their people provide.

Bush indicated that one word he would use to describe the culture at Delta is “care”. Without trust there is no care, and trust in leadership is the most important element of thriving work cultures. Ninety-one percent of Delta employees (about 91,000 employees) want to stay long term, 91% are proud to work at Delta and would recommend their services to others, and 89% are proud of “what we do at Delta”. A Great Places to Work survey question for Delta employees was: do you feel like you get a fair share of the company’s profits? Eighty percent feel they do at Delta. That question is not about money but about equity. I want my fair share. The statistic is true of all groups of employee tenure at Delta. Even people who have worked at Delta less than two years feel they get their fair share of the company’s profits. Clearly, explanations about the basis for employee pay and how raises are determined are complete and understandable at Delta.

One simple, actionable take away from their conversation is this: all it takes is one 15 minute conversation per year between each employee and their boss talking about what else they want to do at the company and how they want to grow. If that happens people are three times as likely to stay with a company long term.

Your organization does not have to have the money and the resources of one of the biggest companies in the world in order to build a great culture that makes people want to work for you. At Conover Consulting we have decades of experience building great cultures with our clients. Reach out to us at laura@conoverconsulting.com to talk about what we can do for you.

#culture #organizationculture #employeenegagement #employerofchoice