Corporate Culture - What's the Basis for Yours?

As someone who loves to talk about maximizing the effective use of Human Capital, one of the things that is a key component of attracting and retaining the right talent is having a corporate culture that is worthy of embracing and furthering. After all, culture is what defines people groups in different parts of the world from other people groups. Skin tone has very little to do with it; in fact, in a country like India where there are thousands of people groups and yet, for the most part, everyone looks the same, it's this element of culture that rallies people together at the start and keeps them together for the long haul.

So...what defines your corporate culture? Maybe your culture has elements of trusting one another, taking risks, embracing change, or continual improvement. Those are all good things, but you have to ask the question, why are those elements of your culture? Profitability? Perhaps, but those things (and really any things) will not alone drive profitability, especially sustained profitability. At the heart of it I think it comes down to one thing.

Conscience.

Now, before I keep going, I have to admit that my inspiration for this blog post came from a message I heard today from Andy Stanley. He was talking about conscience as it influences culture, and that's why we have so many different cultures - we have many different consciences (is that a word?). That's why things like polygamy are very much OK in one part of the world while we Americans only talk about it with disgust.

So how does this apply to corporate culture? Does a corporation have a conscience? You betcha. Its conscience likely developed during its founding, and has also likely evolved as it has experienced more and has had its corporate conscience tested by the world.

But if a conscience can evolve and grow, how do you know whether to trust it as you form a corporate culture?

I think it depends on what formed the corporation's conscience in the first place. Was it an informed decision about what the corporate culture would be and why, or was it more of a "well, this feels right, so it must be right". I'd venture to say that feelings have little to do with having a well-grounded conscience. Instead, it is conviction and passion and truth, not feelings, that truly inform and sustain conscience, and a grounded conscience can then form a culture that is defendable and sustainable and enduring.

So are feelings unimportant? Absolutely not. Feelings can help to validate conviction and passion and truth, and are an important part of providing motivation and assurance. But trusting feelings to be the source of our conscience is, well, as silly as a screen door on a submarine.

Yellow, that is.