Culture is the Character of an Organization

I recently sat down with SmartBrief leadership editor James daSilva to talk company culture. His questions about culture included:

What is culture, and what does “getting it right” mean? Why emphasize culture, and if companies do value it, how should they act on that? Who’s doing it right, and how?

Here’s an excerpt from the interview, which references our recent white paper, Winning with Culture: How Leadership Drives Engagement & Performance.

“Culture is the character of the organization”

The definition of culture depends on whom you talk with. I noted that the white paper opens with this overview: “Welcome to the new economy, where culture is the competitive advantage. People who enjoy and believe in what they do — and feel valued for doing it — invest more of themselves in their work.”

Estis distilled it further: “Culture is the character of the organization.” Again, what does that mean? For Estis, it’s not a matter of what system you’re using, or what client or consultant you have to measure or improve your company. Culture is more of a unique reflection of everything a company is doing and of its characteristics, not a static something you can point to or a generic checklist you can pass around.

“It’s the DNA of the company,” he says. “It’s how you work, what you value — there’s what a company does, right, and there’s what a company’s trying to accomplish, and there’s also the method by which you go about getting there. And I think culture informs all of those things.”

Read the full interview at SmartBrief.

Ryan Estis & Associates is a training and development organization helping companies, leaders, sales people and individual contributors embrace change and achieve breakthrough performance in the new economy. We offer keynotes, live classroom training and online learning that blends interaction, energy and actionable content designed to elevate performance. Contact us for programming inquiries and assistance determining the curriculum that could best support your learning and development objectives.