Cultural shift

Understanding Culture As the Fulcrum of Your Business

One can more readily dictate load and effort, but shifting the fulcrum creates the most dramatic impact. Shift your culture to the ideal place and you will more optimally operate the levers.

Work Culture Is Real

For as long as I’ve been writing them, my strategic plans have always involved three main areas: marketing, operations, and culture. Marketing and operations were my strong suit. Early on in my career, cultural goals felt tertiary to marketing and operations. I admittedly didn’t feel confident in executing culture goals, and I felt work culture only concerned people who prioritized emotions over logic and results.

But as time went on, I began to see how culture enables business. Let me correct myself: I have mostly witnessed how culture disables business. And if you are a “results-oriented” person who doesn’t let feelings influence you or get in your way, I’m here to tell you to get over yourself.

If you are a leader with cultural problems at your company, your approach may even be the main factor holding you back. Work culture is real. It moves with and by all things human and emotional, and no one is exempt.

Culture serves as the fulcrum of any business. It dictates how well your levers operate. The fulcrum decides how smoothly or difficult the levers move, and shifting it takes time and sensitivity. One can more readily dictate load and effort, but shift the fulcrum to the ideal place, and you can more optimally operate the levers.

How Do You Make the Shift?

Over the past year and a half, Common Giant’s cultural goal has been to cultivate a culture of creativity. Our team has focused on how and when we work together, the values we hold and the behaviors that reflect them. I’m lucky to have a team with complementary talents, compatible personalities, and shared values; however, we work at it every day.

Where there is no leadership, there is leadership. Someone or some people will end up leading your company. If you are not leading your company culture, rest assured leadership will come from somewhere else. But if you’ve decided to make a cultural shift, it begins with writing core values, and the leader must drive and deliver the message.

The shift happens over time as people begin to understand the core values and how they apply. Maintain and evolve the shift through practice and weave them throughout your touchpoints and plans. Many people cease to act once they’ve written core value. This treats that exercise as a sprint and not the marathon a true cultural shift is.