Company culture is an interesting topic. Its often mentioned as being the heart of a company, its soul, or its DNA; management guru Peter Drucker is quoted as saying Culture eats strategy for breakfast, and its often looked upon as a powerful differentiator and competitive advantage. And while its relatively easy to spot a good one and just as easy to spot a bad one many organizations struggle with it. They struggle with how to create it, manage it, foster it, and when they suddenly realize that their culture needs fixing, they struggle with how to turn it around.
When you walk into many organizations, particularly those who serve the public, one of the first outward signs of that organizations culture is their mission statement, often followed by a vision statement or guiding principles, and a list of the core values that they say they live by. However, in daily practice, a misalignment often exists between those statements and the employees who supposedly embody and emulate them every day. So why is it that often times the culture a company portrays is so different than the one they actually have?
