Company Culture, in many ways, is the most 'hard to measure' area of business that we have covered so far. With critical psychological, social and relationship dynamics, culture is something that is much talked about when it is distinctive and unique, often ignored when a more prosaic part of business life. Yet culture has profound impact on team and leadership effectiveness, employee retention and motivation, customer service, 'brand alignment', collaboration and ability to innovate. So how can we understand which issues are the most important to address for an effective company culture? How can we utilise ways to measure and monitor its impact on performance (if at all possible)? Finally, are there ways of understanding culture that can be integrated into a business strategy that is genuinely useful? With the rapid pace of change in the business world, increasing internationalisation, and the rise of the 'nerdocracy' businesses based on a model of rapid, 'lean' and disruptive development (usually web based), how can you use your company culture to compete? This presentation summarises the findings from the Hard to Measure roundtable event, which will be published in a report available on www.hardtomeasure.com in June.

2. Introduction
 Three key impacts we particularly wanted to
examine:
 Innovation
 Collaboration
 Communication
 Many important consequences of company
culture:
 as enabler of effective teamwork
 as communicator of brand values
 as language of customer service
 as barrier to change, or driver of it

4. Competing
Values Framework

5. Overview of conclusions
 The virtuous cycle of management and leadership
 Success depends mostly on the way that people
are selected, hired, on-boarded, and empowered.
“Success happens when people understand the
values and vision of the business to the point of
feeling strongly about them, defending them and
fighting for them, even when the top leader
goes.”

6. Informal factors
 Culture is a social construct, so informal elements
just as critical as formal ones
 Personal relationships /social interaction
 Communication style, language used
 Environment and dress
 Cultural boundaries
 Leadership style (lead by example)

7. Formal factors
 Communication Planning
 Formal Feedback on Culture Performance
 Action Generation Mechanism (most challenging)
 On-boarding and Mentoring Processes
 Values, Vision, Purpose, Mission Statement

9. Challenges
 Cost
 M & As
 Brand: advertised vs. lived
 Growth / Size
 Changing a culture
 Empowerment

10. Keys to [informal] success
1. Leadership by example
2. The right people, the right buy-in
3. Clear values and boundaries
4. Individual as flexible (empowering) as
organisation allows
5. Foster common values -> to build
teams, collaborate and socialise effectively
6. Recognition of fluid nature of company culture –
dependent upon individuals – experimentation
and change a necessary part of cc

11. Keys to [formal] success
1. People – what you do to them, what you do with
them
2. Leadership (by example)
3. Make it count: have a process
4. Ambassadors – recognise contributions in this
area
5. Contracts & controls
6. Enterprise & Staff Performance Management –
aligned
7. Investment
8. Stories- in bigger organisations can bring
communications to life
Lots of commonality between formal
and informal success factors...

12. Thanks for coming
 Surinder’s talk 19th June
 Ideas for the autumn events
 Staff and Customer Engagement
 Collaboration
 Innovation – what sort?
 Networking...