Company culture (page 1 of 2)

Our debate focused on how the culture of a workplace can have an impact on the bottom line and more importantly, being from the office interiors industry, to what extent the company culture can be reflected in the office décor.

Unquestionably, it is important that the workplace environment reflects a company's culture. However, like all great insights, it is very simple to talk about but harder to achieve.

Firstly, it might be an idea to look at how a company culture evolves. Culture begins with a good leader who has set goals and more importantly creates the unwritten rules by simply just being. A good leader's behaviour is based on his/her values and personality traits. For example, a naturally creative and erratic person will not naturally have a structured and clean office environment.

Companies will also have written policies for what is accepted and what is not. Together, these written and unwritten rules are the factors that create the boundaries within where we work - and therefore create the culture.

A classic example on how important the right company culture is comes from my hero Jack Welch. When he took over General Electric in the beginning of the 80's he had a clear strategy and vision. In order to implement his strategy he spend over $25m on building a new guesthouse and conference centre at the company's headquarter at Crotonville in the state of New York. At the same time he was downsizing the company, removing one employee in four! In his autobiography "Jack" (Warner Books, 2001) one can read what he was trying to do: "The traditionalists were shocked. I persevered because I wanted to create a first rate informal family atmosphere and needed this ambience to get it". He wanted a place where he could instil values that would be spread around the whole organization - to create the right culture! This was the central platform in order to carry through his strategy.

My colleague Barry speaks about the 'Primary and Secondary Mechanisms' that embed and transmit culture in a company. In the Primary Mechanisms category comes what I touched on earlier - what leaders pay attention to, measure and control, how leaders deal with critical incidents, what leaders actions are - not their words, what is rewarded or punished and the criteria for recruitment and retirement. These are the things Jack knew and worked with through his behaviour.

But Mr Welch also needed the Secondary Mechanisms' as support, i.e. the environment in this case. I am sure he made further adjustments to the Secondary Mechanisms' such as the organizational structure, its procedures and systems.

Another example illustrating the importance of the right company culture is the UK based sandwich company, Prêt a Manger. From the very beginning, the company was a multicultural and multinational organization, with fewer than a third of employees being British, with the remaining staff being a mix of Spanish, Italian, Swedish and French to name a few. The resulting concoction is what the CEO terms as a "uniquely European culture". Mix in a weekly staff party at the local pub and a layout of $400,000 per year on summer and Christmas bashes, and Prêt A Manger has created a culture of a young, dynamic, success hungry company. The result? A chain of more than 100 sandwich shops in London and plans to take its recipe to Hong Kong this year, having sold a third of its company to McDonalds with a view to taking the company global. A classic case of culture creation, leads to ultimate success.

Speaking from a purely office interiors perspective, I believe that by simply walking into an office one can identify the culture of a company and often, the type of industry, one is entering.