Recipe for a Healthy Corporate Culture
June 11, 2012 at 11:40 am 5 comments
Alex Pollock
What are the ingredients in a healthy company culture? Most of us recognize a healthy culture when we’re part of one and can certainly sense the cold chill of an unhealthy culture when we encounter it. I’ll stay on the positive side, however, and enlist your help in identifying the ingredients you deem are essential for a healthy culture.
- Ethics; the willingness to do the right thing
- Candor
- Fairness
- Lack of fear
- Leaders that create vision, care for people, and protect the mission
- Team spirit
- Questioning; no such thing as a bad question
- People performing at the highest level
- People recommend the workplace to family and friends
- Leaders genuinely interested in how employees feel
- Employee health and safety comes first
- The “do good” to “look good” ratio is in balance
- Urgency and excitement to make a difference
- Employees before customers
What have I missed? Isn’t a culture that makes “every day a great day” a beautiful thing? Which company cultures you think exemplify this recipe?
For more than 32 years, Alex Pollock was an influential leader of business operations for the Dow Chemical Co., providing strategic expertise in the area of EH&S, Sustainability, Change Management, Merger Management, Public Affairs and Community Relations. He retired from Dow in June 2008 to pursue his passion, through his own company Equipping You LLC, to encourage and equip EH&S leaders to bring the very best out of their followers.
Entry filed under: Leadership Development, Uncategorized. Tags: company culture, corporate culture, EHS Human Resources, EHS Management, employee satisfaction, Leadership, workplace culture.
1.
William D'Alessandro, Executive Editor | June 11, 2012 at 10:06 pm
This is the best list on the subject I have ever seen.
The only opinion I have to offer is on the point:
•Ethics; the willingness to do the right thing
I would replace “willingness to do” with “insistence on doing”
2.
Stephen Evanoff | June 11, 2012 at 11:34 pm
Alex:
I think a healthy corporate culture is fundamental to a business’ ability to sustain a high level of performance over a long period of time. I think you’ve identified the most important elements of a healthy corporate culture.
My boss uses the following simple, but insightful question to evaluate corporate culture, “Would you want your son or daughter to work here?”
3.
Alex Pollock | June 12, 2012 at 12:45 pm
Thanks for your great insights William and Stephen. I remember when the question you raised Stephen used to be prominent in company employee surveys as a way to gauge employee satisfaction. Not used much in the surveys I’ve seen over the last 5-10 years.
4.
Debbie | June 15, 2012 at 11:06 am
Thanks for sharing Alex,
I’d add encouraging listening and communication skills development. I just finished the book “delivering happiness” and there were some unique culture points — I recommend it to everyone.
Debbie
5.
Dash | July 23, 2012 at 5:43 pm
I’d concur with Debbie – deep listening skills are essential. Also a willingness to “own” solutions. Some organizations I’ve known feel all things EH&S belong to the EH&S department. The healthier companies I’ve been involved with know EH&S is there to provide guidance and expertise where warranted in partnership with departments that “own” their compliance.