It's the buzz word in business today. Culture. It can mean many things. I think I know what it means; but what it means to me may be different than what it means to you. I turned to Google and found an article on corporate culture in the Harvard Business Review. What better place? The article is titled Six Components of a Great Corporate Culture by John Coleman. I was anxious to see how our company would stack up against the article. The six components are Vision, Values, Practices, People, Narrative and Place.
Values, according to the article, is about behaviors and mindsets needed to achieve the vision of the organization.
Ron Coleman, one of our techs in Lexington sent me a link to a YouTube video of a high school football game. The announcers gave Unified a shout out a couple times and it was because (in my opinion) of Ron's mindset. Ron overheard the announcers in the press box scrambling to get their internet broadcast working. Seems they didn't have the correct cable or connnections. Ron stepped in, went home and got the necessary supplies, and ran a cable to help get them up and running. He just saw someone having trouble and stepped in to help them out. That's just the way he is and I'd venture to say most of our staff are the same.
A few years ago we received an email from one of our new customers praising Matt Tedford, a Louisville technician. When he left the job site of a new installation it was starting to get dark and he noticed a suspicious person in the parking lot. Knowing the customer was alone in the building, he went back in and stayed with her until the possible danger passed. That's just the way he is.
Those are two examples of the values our culture is built on. Make that, Values, Practices and People, three of the components of a great corporate culture. The fifth component is Narrative. And I'm working on that right now by retelling stories that define us.
So let's see, we don't have a formal Vision Statement but we can work on that. We definitely have a great start on the rest. The last component, Place, can mean the geographic location, the architecture or the aesthetic design of the office. I was glad to see the author thought this was an important part of a great corporate culture because last Friday we opened an employee break area in some spare office space in our Louisville office. We want our new ping pong table and comfortable chairs to help build an even stronger, better team here at Unified. We must be on the right track, it's one of the Six Components of a Great Corporate Culture.