On Corporate Culture
“Maintaining an effective culture is so important that it trumps even strategy.”
– Howard Stevenson, Professor Emeritus, Harvard Business School
As the modern workplace evolves the benefits of a strong culture are more important than ever. Many companies have nice sounding value statements displayed in their front lobby. Enron, who went bankrupt after their leaders went to jail for fraud, had these words stencilled on their wall: Integrity, Communication, Respect and Excellence.
So what exactly is corporate culture?
According to Frances Frei and Anne Morriss at Harvard Business Review:
“Corporate culture picks up where the employee handbook leaves off. Culture tells us whether to risk telling our boss about new ideas, and whether to surface or hide problems. Employees make hundreds of decisions on their own every day, and corporate culture is their guide."
In a blog post, marketer and entrepreneur Neil Patel breaks out four elements that make great culture and why you need to care about it now. "When you put a focus on culture", Patel states, "you’ll have guiding principles. People will know you for this. Employees will live by it. It’ll help get you through difficult times. In a sense, it's the glue that keeps a company together."
Culture is more than words on a wall or a foosball table in the break room. A strong culture can't be faked. It's an extension of your values and thus an extension of your brand. It's good people, doing good work in an environment that is good.
Read Neil Patel's post below and absolutely check out Netflix's corporate culture slideshow.
5 reasons why your entire team should contribute to your content efforts
Many companies rely solely on their marketing teams to create content, however the most successful content campaigns require a team effort. In a recent article by CEO of the marketing company GAIN, Albizu Garcia makes that case that "your team is full of individuals, all capable of sharing unique and exciting perspectives."
"It can be challenging, of course, to rally everyone around content creation - especially those outside of the marketing department - but in doing so, you can add an entirely new, relevant angle to what you produce."
To see 5 benefits this expanded approach can bring (one of which is to highlight company culture!) give a read to the article below.