The Real Impact of Company Culture

Strategy

If I asked you, "What's your company culture?", what would you say?

There's a good chance that how you talk about it is different from someone on your team, your manager, or the CEO of the company. In the business world, culture feels like it means something different to everyone. It's often thrown around as a buzzword or used as a label. Words like "corporate", "startup", "family", and "toxic" attempt to connect the dots between a person and what it's like to work in that company. For some, it puts a neat bow around the company's values, mission, and vision to help align teams towards long-term goals.

It's office aesthetic. It's brand. It's fun. It's like-minded employees.

While all of these aspects contribute to company culture, they don't fully capture what it is and why its important. In this blog, we'll explore what culture truly is, why it matters, and how it can be a multiplier for your organization's potential.

What Culture Is (And Isn't)

Over my career as an IT Professional Services consultant, and now running a boutique firm in the same space, I've been a part of incredible and transformative projects across many industries from healthcare and pharma to manufacturing and retail. Every time I've been part of an organization-defining initiative, the key to its success came down to the culture of the company.

Let's break down what culture really means:

1. Your Company's Identity

Culture is the soul of an organization. It influences everything from how you go to market to the rituals your company adopts. It's the sum of all the parts that make your business a great place to work.

Like in your personal life, you connect with friends over common interests. The same rules apply with your company's culture: a strong culture lets the world know who you are and what you believe in. It allows you to find the right team members to join your cause, attract the right type of client, and helps improve how your company performs.

2. A Guide for Your Team

Think of culture as the unwritten rules that guide behavior for your teams. It influences how choices are made and problems are solved. It is the collective mindset of your organization, based on how leadership acts, and it needs to be reinforced daily through your actions. It's the day-to-day decisions that truly reflect and shape an organization's culture.

Want to see how your culture is influencing your teams firsthand? Watch them under pressure. It will give you everything you need to know about your company culture.

3. Trust

This is a passion area for me and a core value that I practice with clients and our people every day. Some days it’s easier than others, but we never stop trying to push decision-making down to the team (re: Decentralized Command). Trust is the foundation of positive culture. When your company adopts a high-trust culture, employees take risks, share ideas, and be their authentic selves.

Trust is one of the greatest multipliers I've seen firsthand as we're growing Comet and in the past decade of Professional Services. At the center of every transformation that I've been a part of, there has been a leader with unwavering trust in their people.

What Culture Isn't

To fully understand culture, it's also important to recognize what it isn't:

  1. Static or Uniform: Culture isn't unchanging or exactly the same for everyone. Microsoft's culture, for example, has evolved significantly under different leadership, from a competitive internal environment to a more collaborative one. This shift resulted in the company's value exploding from $300 billion in 2014 to over $3 trillion.
  2. Perks and Benefits: Free snacks and ping-pong tables are nice, but they're not culture. A company might offer unlimited vacation time (a perk), but if the culture doesn't actually support taking time off, it's not part of the true culture.
  3. Short-Term Initiatives: A company retreat or a one-time team-building event doesn't create culture. Consistent behaviors and reinforcement over time do. However, if a CEO or Executive Leader recognizes a toxic culture and needs to pivot fast, a campaign that takes accountability and clearly lays out a plan to address unacceptable behaviors can put the culture on the road to recovery.

The Power of Culture

Culture is the heartbeat of a company, setting the tone for how things get done. It influences how people act, make choices, and ultimately, acts as a multiplier for potential. When your culture and strategy are in sync, you've got a powerful combination that fuels creativity, keeps your team motivated, and drives business growth.

At the first consulting firm I joined, I'd work 60, 70, 80+ hour weeks for particularly demanding projects and never felt burnt out. Looking back on it now, I realize that my connection to the culture and the team made working insane hours and sacrificing weekends feel fulfilling. While we can debate the merits and drawbacks of "hustle culture" another time, this experience highlighted the profound impact that a strong, positive culture can have on employee engagement and performance for me.

Conclusion

It's not just about creating a fun work environment; it's about building the foundation for your company's success. A strong, positive culture can drive innovation, attract top talent, and ultimately multiply your growth potential.

Does culture matter? Absolutely.