The Importance Of Company Culture

UNDERSTANDING THE IMPORTANCE OF COMPANY CULTURE

By Mark “Six” James CPO, EPS, CAS

Company Culture simply defined is, how you do what you do in the workplace. It is the sum of your formal and informal systems and behaviors and values, all of which create an experience for your employees and customers.

Some of the critical words often associated with high performing cultures are: agile, collaborative, fast paced, flexible, inclusive and passionate. A dynamic culture happens when vision, values, behaviors, talent, and strategy come together.

Culture is the only thing your competitors for talent can’t replicate, and that is what makes it a competitive advantage when it comes to attracting and retaining talent. While vision is the catalyst of all great companies and cultures, values are the cement that hold it together.

Culture Essentials

1. Alignment – all levels and players are clear about the organization’s purpose and make decisions in accordance with it.

2. Appreciation – recognition and enjoyment of the good qualities of someone or something.

3. Trust – firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability or strength of someone or something.

4. Performance – the ability of an individual or entity to deliver optimal implementation of a product or service that meets corporate, consumer, customer, or employee expectations.

5. Resilience – the ability to absorb stress, recover critical functionality and thrive in altered circumstances.

6. Teamwork - the ability to work collaboratively with a group of people to achieve a goal.

7. Integrity – operating yourself or the organization consistently in accordance with a strong set of moral values while following applicable ethical guidelines.

8. Innovation – the application of an existing concept or practice in a new way or applying new technology or process to improve upon it.

9. Psychological Safety – the belief that you won’t be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.

Understand People Matter

Be a company that excels in recognitions. Catch people doing something right and reward that behavior. Encourage feedback. Remember employee feedback is a gift, whether it is shared openly in person, or anonymously in a survey, post-it board, suggestion box or a note under your door. Create an environment where it is always ok to have differences of opinions, as long as we find harmonious ways to discuss our differences.

Turn your leaders into cultural avatars. They must not only walk the talk, but they must also promote the talk. If your leaders or team members aren’t happy and satisfied, they can never translate that energy into external client satisfaction.

The Executive Protection business is the people business. Learn to personalize your employees’ experiences, while still delivering consistency in corporate treatment and requirements. Be authentic, because as a leader, you must model your company’s values.

Three of the things we value at my agency, Panther Protection Services are loyalty, discipline, and humility. We understand we must be loyal to both our clients as well as our employees because life, like business, will always come with challenges, but it is our ability to support each other particularly through adversity is what separates the best of breed.

When it comes to risk mitigation protocols like the Protective Advance, whether we are talking about site surveys or route planning, we realize despite having done this dance a thousand times before, we understand we must maintain the discipline to dance it each time like it is the first time. The humility to stay focused on the objective or the mission and remain emotionally neutral even in the face of a direct challenge or heightened success. As my dad always said, “act like you have been there before.”

Focus on fostering continuous learning, as people and clients must continue to feel fulfilled. The needs of the business will continue to change and evolve, we also must continue to do the same whether the change is environmental, threat related, or client driven.

Stimulate Camaraderie

Encourage collaboration, fairness and create healthy competition to help team members grow independently and collectively. Allow team members to share their relevant strengths with other team members, thereby encouraging cross functional excellence. Company cultures evolve like businesses, thereby allowing them to maintain their relevance. Great leaders understand the importance of establishing strong core values coupled with a flexible business model that is dynamic and adaptable to change in both the marketplace and client base. While core values remain steadfast, culture and companies that survive and remain contemporary continue to make progress, and often grow though evolution.

“ Focus on fostering continuous learning, as people and clients must continue to feel fulfilled. ”

Companies with strong company cultures create a halo effect in all interactions whether employee, client, or vendor. Company culture is contagious whether it is warm and inviting or toxic. Your people become the transmitters of the company energy whether positive or negative. Companies with good company cultures tend to have happy employees which reduces employee and client churn. Culture has a direct impact on how a company performs.

Culture is a Talent Acquisition and Retention Strategy

The employee/contractor experience significantly impacts your ability to attract, engage and retain talent. In a highly competitive talent market, we will always see an increase in wages and overall compensation. However, year over year, disproportionate increases in wages and overall compensation is not sustainable, as money merely becomes a commodity.

Make sure both your culture and business model can sustain generational differences. Boomers (born 1946 to 1964), Generation X (born 1965 to 1980), Millennials (born 1981 to 2000), Generation Z (born 2001 to 2020), all process information differently, as well value different criteria in employee/employer relationships, when it comes to driving job satisfaction. Make sure your talent strategy is structured to reflect the requirements of the respective employee demographics and cultural nuances. During the pandemic many of employees were seen as non-essential and learned to make different work/ life adjustments, which caused many to seek more balanced relationships coming out of pandemic.

“ Year over year, disproportionate increases in wages and overall compensation is not sustainable, as money merely becomes a commodity. ”

Millennials want purpose and a great place to work. “When they believe their work has meaning – that it is more than just a job – they are three times more likely to stay,” according to Michael Bush CEO of a Great Place to Work. Recognition helps with engagement and performance, as well as ensures ways to affirm employees or contractors are respected, valued and heard. Openly celebrate positive behaviors, and budget for activities that align with the company vision.

Understanding Motivation

If you aren’t serving a customer, you better be serving someone who is. What are your employees trying to fix, solve or avoid? Understand your employees’ pain points, as well as you understand your customers. Employee branding and HR specialists understand the importance of borrowing a marketing principle of maximizing the customer experience and translating it to the internal customer, the employee. The goal is to create favorable and engaging experiences for top talent. You can show them better than you can tell them. Your tools, processes and corporate culture will speak for themselves in employee retention and customer satisfaction. All of these things are true in the business world, and we must remember we are in the business of Executive Protection.

Mark “Six” James is Founder and Executive Director of Panther Protection Services, LLC. He is an internationally published author, keynote speaker, security consultant to educational institutions and frequent contributor to print, broadcast and online media. Panther Protection Services is a full-service protection agency focusing on Risk and Crisis Mitigation, Protective Services, Self-Defense Training, and Firearm Instruction. www.pantherprotectionservices.com

Circuit Magazine

Categories

Social Footprints