Co-Founder of HubSpot, Brian Halligan, said in an article:
“I meet with lots of CEOs who want to pick my brain on the journey from starting to scaling HubSpot as its CEO”.
In that article, he said:
“Treat your culture as your second product”.
He expanded on this by saying:
“We have two products, one we sell to our customers (HubSpot’s CRM) and one we sell to our employees (HubSpot’s culture). Like your product, you need your culture to be unique relative to the competition (for talent) and you want your culture to be very valuable. Like your product, when it is unique and valuable, your company turns into a magnet that attracts and retains terrific talent. And like your product, it’s never done – it needs continued iteration”.
That’s powerful advice.
When we talk about culture, we’re talking about the environment in which your people work, and the influence it has on how they think, act and experience work.
The scientific research we’ve consumed on what type of cultures help produce high performing businesses, suggests developing a high trust, high purpose and high standard culture.
To quote some research:
“Our data show[s] that trust substantially boosts an organization’s performance, employee engagement, retention, and well-being.”
These are elements of your business which contribute to profit maximisation over the short, medium and long-term.
To quote some other research, we compare the outcomes of unwanted cultures and those you would desire.
Beginning quote:
“Dysfunctional cultures can develop stress, distrust, low morale, a lack of sense of ‘team’, a feeling that they aren’t … cared for, a lack of listening, [it can] minimise learning…”;
and we end that piece of the quote there as the list goes on and on.
Quoting another section of that research:
“A productive culture on the other hand inspires, helps to develop openness, builds trust, enhances performance, fosters developmental feedback, gets people to push themselves to be better and do better, boosts self-esteem, inspires a willingness to learn, flex, innovate and be genuine.”
We all no doubt want a productive culture, but:
Is it really that important and how do you get it?
To further the point about the importance of culture, let us take a brief moment to refer to research that looked into what led to the fantastic success of Zappos – an online shoe and clothing shop founded in 1999 and sold to Amazon ten years later for $1.2 billion.
The researched found that there were two key elements which produced Zappos success:
- Culture; and
- High performance teams.
So, how did they make their culture?
The research found five drivers that shaped the culture:
- Committed leaders
- Practiced core values
- Customer focused strategy
- HR practices aligned with the core values
- Management practices aligned with the core values
Essentially, the culture was not left up to chance. Employees were specifically trained for the culture and leaders led the way.
So, as you’re looking to improve your business and create a sustainable competitive advantage, do continue to keep in mind that committed work on shaping a high trust, high purpose and high standards culture can have a profound, leveraged and positive impact on your success.
We’ll end with these questions:
- Will you have the fortitude to make it happen?
- Do you know how to make it happen?
In that video you just watched, we mentioned some research.
If you’d like the references, simply head on in to the Munro’s Business Academy and you can find them on the Reference page.