The Culture Engine by Chris Edmonds

One of the topics I love to discuss is culture. I think it’s a powerful, yet underutilized, tool for driving business performance. I recently read The Culture Engine (on Amazon here) and wanted to share a few insights that particularly spoke to me.

Highlights

• What is the cost of high performing, low fit employees? When you think about your workforce, you know that some people can really get the job done, but they might not fit with the core values of your organization. In other words, they can do the “what,” but they miss the mark on the “how.” Figuring out how to actually put a cost on retaining those folks is the first step in getting rid of them. Companies are reluctant to drop high performing staff, but if they are damaging the culture, driving higher team turnover, or having other negative results, it’s important to define and measure those sorts of impacts against the “positive” inputs.
• Stop the “don’t” messages. Instead of solely talking about what NOT to do, give your staff values and targets to aspire to. This is something I’ve said for years, but this is great validation for that concept. If you only talk about the bottom, minimally acceptable standards, how do you expect to help staff reach higher goals?
• Define your values in behavioral terms. Yeah, you have values like “integrity” and “customers first” on your list of values, but what do they really mean? Take the time to list examples (real ones are better!) and the actual behaviors that you want to see. As with the previous bullet point, the more you can define what you DO want to see, the more likely you’ll actually see it.

Conclusion

If you also are interested in culture, values, and how those can drive actual business results, then I think this is a book you’ll enjoy. You can get your copy here.  If you’re not quite convinced that culture is a tool that organizations can use to increase revenues and become more competitive, then this might also be a good opportunity for you to learn about how some companies are doing just that with measurable results. It’s a great book!