At the heart of every winning company lies a strong and positive culture. This culture flows from the company’s leaders and is deeply embedded in the behavior or its staff as well as in its systems and structures. Culture provides the company with a unique personality that firmly sets it apart from other companies.
Yet businesses tend to de-prioritize attending to their organisational culture, as they struggle to survive in sometimes harsh operating environments.
However business owners should understand the following key points about organizational culture:
- Culture is a powerful force within an organization that influences its strategy, people, processes and systems.
- It is better to cultivate culture intentionally than to allow it to evolve randomly
- A founder’s personal values and the organization’s core values are intrinsically linked. He or she is responsible for creating the corporate culture
- Top leadership is responsible for ensuring consistent, positive values and belief are sustained as staff strength increases and operative expand
- Recruiting people that fit the company’s culture is critical, since employees are ambassadors of their organizational culture.
- Every organization has subcultures, subgroups of people with similar values. These subcultures can be either positive or negative
- Positive subcultures enhance the dominant organizational culture. Negative subcultures conflict with the dominant organizational culture. The effect of negative subcultures can be minimized.
By investing the time and effort to develop a strong, positive, corporate culture, business owners can ensure consistent high performance, which builds the organization and sustains a lasting legacy.
Below are question which might help you to determine which of the four types of culture – Collaborative, Creative, Control, Competitive – your company has. Each question seeks to assess culture types based on characteristics observed.
You may find more than one response suitable; however you must select just one response that most closely describes your company.
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The atmosphere in my company is ——–
- Friendly, cordial and family oriented
- Dynamic and encourages taking ownership
- Focused on outcomes
- Controlled and structured
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In my company, the top leaders are ——–
- Mentoring and nurturing
- Entrepreneurial and take risks
- Aggressive and result oriented
- Organized and efficient
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In my company, relationship between people are based on——–
- Loyalty and trust
- Developing and sharing new ideas
- Rivalry and competition
- Formal arrangement
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My organization places the most value on ——–
- Teamwork and mutual trust
- Commitment to innovation and generation of new ideas
- The desire to win and grab market share
- Stability and efficiency
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The main strategic focus of my company is ——–
- Developing staff capacity and collaboration
- Acquiring new resources and latest technologies
- Aggressive competition and winning market share
- Creating permanent structures and consistent results
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In my company, success is measured based on ——–
- Practicing high levels of teamwork and collaboration
- Creating unique products that are the most innovative
- Winning market share and outpacing the competition
- Being efficient and producing consistent results
Answer Key
- Mostly As: Collaborative Culture
- Mostly Bs: Creative Culture
- Mostly Cs: Competitive Culture
- Mostly Ds: Control Culture
Extracted from LEAP’s mini-series “Corporate Culture: The Essence of Winning Companies”.
What’s your organisational culture and how can you build a strong culture?
“Corporate Culture: The Essence of Winning Companies” is a precise, easy to read and very explanatory publication. It’s an insightful, fun quick read containing only 67 pages.
This publication is available at the following bookstores below. For online purchases, of any of our mini-series publications, please click here. Call 01-2706542 or email aasaba@leapafrica.org info@leapafrica.org for more information.
- Debonair Bookstore 294, Herbert Macaulay Street,Sabo Yaba.
- B & B Bookshops 107a, Adeniyi Jones Avenue,Ikeja.
- CIBN Bookshops Plc, 19, Adeola Hopewell,Lagos.
- NIIA Bookshops 13/15, Kofo Abayomi Street,Victoria Island,Lagos.
- Terra Kulture Plot 1376, Savage, Off Ahmadu Bello Way,Victoria Island,Lagos.
- CSS Bookshop, Bookshop House,50/52,Broad Street,Lagos Island.
- Options Book House 142, Oyo Road, Ojo, Ibadan North, Oyo State.
Tip: An organisation’s structure, processes, policies and systems should be integrated with its cultural values.
