It's All About Culture

Simon Sinek is probably a name that you have heard, and he is increasingly being followed on Twitter; his TED talks are so well received. Most of his talks found on YouTube too, have received much following. And his books are well worth reading. I was looking at conferences that are available around the world and find that, very often, he is one of the speakers that are invited for leadership and corporate conferences.

But, I was reading this book that he had written, "Leaders Eat Last" and in a chapter in the book called 'Destructive Abundance', he talks about a leadership lesson. He titles it: So Goes The Culture, So Goes The Company. In it, he documents the way Goldman Sachs moved from a point of being such a well-known, respected company in the seventies. And how Gustave Levy, the senior partner in Goldman-Sachs in the 1970s would talk about what he called 'long-term greedy.' Long-term greedy meant – "Sometimes it was worth taking a short-term hit to help a client because the loyalty and trust it produced would in time pay back in spades." And he adds, "Pay back it did."

Sinek goes on to document how Goldman Sachs at that point – their selection criteria was never actually academic based. They never picked the top people, the cream of the class. Their selection criteria was always – could this person fit into the culture of Goldman Sachs? That was the key ingredient that was used to recruit people. But he says, "Somewhere along the line, about 30 years later, around the turn of the century, that particular culture began to break down, and academic pedigree began to be the way they started picking people even before seeing whether it was a culture fit. Slowly, that began to break down. Soon the company began to slide down, have layoffs and so on." And we know what happened with the insider trading and all that in the last 5 or 6 years and how it has affected the company culture.

 

Sinek says, "Company culture is something that we ought to be able to strive for. One must always take pride in belonging to a company and being part of a company culture that is worth belonging to." He references WestJet Airlines in Canada. He says that the people who work for that airline in Canada, don't call themselves employees of WestJet. But they call themselves WestJetters. He says, "That is the key. The culture needs to be something that employees buy into. But when you move from long-term greedy to short-term greedy, then it becomes a weak culture. It begins to be more than a 'me first and then the company'. And we move from doing the right thing to doing the thing that's right for me. That is the beginning of the slide for a company. Company culture is so important and leaders must be able to provide and determine what makes a culture something that people want to be a part of."

There was much research done after November 26, 2008 when we had the terrorist attack in Mumbai and those of us who live in Mumbai and actually all across India, well remember television scenes and we recognized how close terror had come. But, there was an article that was done by 2 Harvard Business Review professors, Rohit Deshpande & Anjali Raina, who is actually in the Harvard Business Review based in India. They put together an article on organizational culture entitled "The Ordinary Heroes of The Taj." In it, they talked about how, on that day, for example, Harish Manwani, chairman, and Nitin Paranjpe, CEO, of Hindustan Unilever, were having a do at the Taj. They had a whole lot of senior executives there and about 35 Taj employees, led by a 24-year-old banquet manager, Mallika Jagad, who was assigned to manage the event on the second-floor banquet room. He documents how, around 9:30, they heard shots which they first thought were fireworks. They then realized they were gunshots and how quickly Mallika moved, locked the doors, turned off the lights and told everyone to lie down quietly under tables and not to use cell phones. She even went to the point where husbands and wives were separated to reduce risk to families. They went around offering water, asking people if they needed anything else. They then managed to get them out through a window and all of that.

Then 48-year-old Thomas Varghese, a waiter at Wasabi Restaurant, instructed his 50-odd guests to crouch under tables, and then formed a human employee cordon around them.

 He then got them down a spiral staircase. He himself never got out, as he was the last one out – when he reached the bottom of the staircase, he was gunned down. Also, Karambir Singh Kang, the general manager, lost his wife and 2 children who were on the sixth floor and there was nothing he could do because he was trying to get everyone out. It was documented that at least 1,200 to 1,500 guests escaped that day as Taj Mumbai lost employees, almost a third of the hotel's casualties.

But, the point that Sinek was making was that it had to do with culture. What kind of a culture does Taj create to be known as one of the top 20 hotels, as ranked by Condé Nast Traveler in the overseas business hotel category? Taj has a three-tier hiring system where, for the frontline staff, they hire people straight out of school, but from towns that are not mainline towns. They recruit them from smaller towns and they say that in smaller towns, they are able to get people who still have respect for elders. They recruit them from Pune and Chandigarh and Dehradun and Coimbatore, Mysore, Manipal and they say that they can train these people to be customer-centric. Then they get their supervisors and junior managers from catering colleges, institutes across India. But again, they look for integrity, the ability to work consistently and conscientiously, always putting the guests first. Then they hire their top management from management schools that are second and third tier business schools, saying that the top tier business schools have usually people who want the best for themselves. They can train these people to be more customer-centric. It all boils down to the kind of culture that a company wants to provide.

Sinek says, "That's one of the things that separates some companies from the other and makes them great places not only to work with but great companies to interact with. culture is so important and leaders actually are the ones who are able to build that kind of culture."

This made me think about the culture that is a part of the organization that you work with, whether you have an ability to create a culture, whether you have a say in it.

There's a white paper brought out by Bruce Tharp entitled "Four Organizational Culture Types." He says, "There are 4 cultures that are prevalent in companies:

1.     Control (Hierarchy) Culture – they value standardization, control and well-defined culture. McDonalds is a good example of a culture like that.

2.     Compete (Market) Culture – driven by the market. Here they are focused on relationships, particularly with suppliers and contractors.

3.     Collaborate (Clan) Culture – driven by a clan kind of idea. They value cohesion and a humane working environment. It highlights an organization like Tom's of Maine in the US.

4.     Create (Adhocracy) Culture – there's more flexibility, adaptability. People thrive on how others would respond in a management chaos. That kind of environment is perpetuated so that innovation happens. google is a good example of this.

But all of this, to say that culture is so important in our work places because it helps people who come to work, buy into the way that a particular organization will work. A good yardstick to use is often whether employees will wear company tshirts with pride even among their friends' circles. Or do they only wear it while relaxing at home or doing chores. What kind of a culture is culture is created – creates a wonderful work environment that helps people do much more than just their jobs, where they become customer-centric.

Last week I talked about going the extra mile and culture also provides the impetus for going the extra mile. As I read through Sinek and these other articles that I've referenced, it made me think about you all, and what kind of a culture you work for and work in, whether you have the ability to create culture, and if you do, how important it is that you create a good culture. My prayer is that you would allow these thoughts to permeate and see whether there is something that can be done in your environment.

May I pray with you? Almighty God, help us as ones who have influence, to be good influencers, to be able to do what is necessary and required so that we don't settle for short-term goodness, but are able to go the long haul and last the full journey because we create a good culture and a good environment to work on. Help us to be long-term greedy, to be able to look for loyalty and trust that people will have in us and that we can create that kind of environment for people to work. We ask for your wisdom to be able to do that. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

•       Simon Sinek, "Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together And Others Don't."  http://www.amazon.in/Leaders-Eat-Last-Together-Others/dp/1591845327

•       Rohit Deshpande & Anjali Raina, "The Ordinary Heroes of The Taj," https://hbr.org/2011/12/the-ordinary-heroes-of-the-taj

•       Bruce M. Tharp, "Four Organizational Culture Types," http://www.canfieldco.com/uploads/Four_Organizational_Culture_Types.pdf