Junk my Car Blog

What is Company Culture? Certainly it is a complex subject, I mean, a Google search returns 127,000,000 results.

According to businessdictionary.com, "Organizational culture is the sum total of an organization's past and current assumptions, experiences, philosophy, and values that hold it together, and are expressed in its self-image, inner workings, interactions with the outside world, and future expectations."

Many believe that this culture begins with an understanding of the stories, folklore, symbols, and rituals that implicitly direct employees, partners, and even customers about “the right way”, “how things really work”, and “what’s really valued”.

Recently we JMCers received the "Story of Junk my Car" in our email boxes. As one of the people who can say that I lived through some of those early years, it suddenly dawned on me that we were beginning the groundwork towards publishing our company culture in written form for the first time.

So what's the big deal? Well, one writer goes so far as to say that "...[Culture] can make or break your company... and companies with an adaptive culture... routinely outperform their competitors with some studies reporting a difference at 200% or more." (Company Culture What It Is And How To Change It)

Take an amazingly innovative company like Google whose "commitment to innovation depends on everyone being comfortable sharing ideas and opinions. Every employee is a hands-on contributor, and everyone wears several hats." (http://www.google.com/corporate/culture.html) As a result, Google employees give the company a 4.0 (satisfied) rating, meaning employees generally like the company, like the leadership, and like their jobs.

Take a look at another innovative company like Zappos who take it a step further. The Zappos' Blog provides remarkable insight into their "Work hard, play hard" culture.

There are several other examples that we can seek out, but these two companies make it pretty clear that successful business cultures of today are not only about passion, but also about creating and as a result, they are fun. A point not missed by Edward O. Welles in The Fun Factor where he writes, "What's really driving the new economy – and confounding the grand pooh-bahs of the old one – is that individuals are having a huge impact. And an awful lot of fun"

This vantage point paints a clear picture that to have fun and more-so to be successful, the next generation of businesses require a winning team of people. It makes having the "right players on the bus" as Jim Collins puts it in "Good to Great", vital to a high productivity workplace.

The "right players on the bus" translates to a basic understanding that while the company takes great strides to create the culture, it is ultimately the employees and their actions that bring the company's culture to life.

This is why culture has to be worked on from all angles and from each employee within the company. It is also why the culture must evolve as the company grows, even if slightly, because each new employee brings their own values and practices to the group and thus into the culture.

Proper orientation, training and instilling your company's culture is no small feat. Neither is ensuring that your present day employees all "get it". I suppose this is a direct correlation to my previous google search regarding the subject matter.

Regardless, I believe it is clear that from job seekers to high level representatives, business culture is an ever evolving, ever changing life form. And while it is not as easy to obtain as something you can just get at your local pharmacy or grocery, the biggest and best companies prove that it is exactly what the proverbial doctor ordered to ensure the healthy success of a company.

Labels: Company Culture, Junk my Car