Lack of urgency in a department?
The other day I was discussing the concept of growing a business with a colleague, a new client. The client was explaining his frustration with outdated financial information from his accounting department. He felt he was always late to the party and was complaining about the department and their lack of urgency in providing up to date information. I ask how he planned to remedy his dilemma.
I guess I need a new accounting manager, he commented. Does he? Interesting, I thought, he doesn’t seem to realize his manager has little to do with solving the problem. He owns the company. He drives the culture and sets the tone for daily operations.
As a business owner, you have the total responsibility for creating the culture in your company. What is culture? It is the personality of your organization. It is the shared beliefs and values of the organization’s leader/leaders. Then communicating verbally and non-verbally this philosophy to the employees is essential. The culture shapes the perceptions, behaviors and understanding of its employees. Your culture is one of the characteristics that drives company success or determines its failure.
Profitable Revenue Growth
If one of your beliefs is profitable revenue growth, then your set of values must drive that belief. Example of those values may look like this:
- We operate with integrity and transparency.
- We value candid feedback.
- We hold ourselves accountable.
- We set bold, but achievable goals and work hard to achieve set goals.
- We believe in life balance.
- We operate in a respectful environment.
- We believe in real time data.
- We are a team; we therefore help each other.
- We believe in empathy.
- We believe our customer’s experience is essential to profit.
It’s your job to establish values such as these. Your employees must be included in the process. You need buy in, but more importantly, the team will provide very valuable input.
Your culture will determine your outcome in both the short and long-term life cycle of your business. It’s essential, as an owner, that you get this. How’s your company’s culture?
