Why should you improve the soul of your company?

Your company’s culture is its soul. It’s that intangible, unique atmosphere that influences everything that happens at your organisation, from the way people communicate with their co-workers to the pride they take in their work.

If you’re discontent with your company’s current soul, take heart. Just as surely as you can change your leadership structure or your product line, you can change your company’s culture. And you should. Here’s why:

Relationships Matter

One of the first things new hires notice is the culture of relationships at their new company. Do people casually chat in the hallway? Do they collaborate on projects? Do they get jealous when someone succeeds? Do they all eat lunch in their cubicles by themselves? 

Changing your company’s culture to encourage healthy, productive business relationships is not as difficult as it sounds. For instance, you can encourage collaboration in the way you set up your office or communicate information. Regular company luncheons and open floor plan can go a long way toward helping employees to develop good relationships with one another.

Honesty and Constructive Feedback Keep You Moving Forward

No one likes to be criticised, but honesty and constructive feedback are essential to personal career growth and the success of your company. If you would like your company soul to encourage honesty and constructive feedback, train managers to provide feedback on a frequent basis, not just once or twice a year in performance reviews.

Feedback should be delivered in person, not via email, and employees should be recognised for the good work they do. It’s also helpful to give feedback from co-workers and customers as well as from managers. From time to time, re-evaluate your training to keep your business moving forward.

Excellence Can Be Institutionalised

A culture of excellence requires leadership that stays focused on goals. This is something that many businesses struggle with. In the daily grind of keeping your company running, it can be difficult to stay focused on the big picture.

 To improve your company’s culture of excellence, create a master document that explains exactly what excellence means. This should be detailed enough that it includes reasonable timelines and benchmarks. Plan times to follow up with these benchmarks, and help all of your employees to work toward meeting them.

Intelligent Risks Make a Difference

A culture that discourages employees from taking any risks is a culture that soon leads to malaise. A risk-intelligent culture strikes a healthy balance between risks and rewards and it enhances performance and accountability.

 Creating a flexible framework that is grounded in industry standards can give your business a strong foundation for risk intelligence. This framework should define roles, responsibilities, and the hierarchy structure of your business. When people know what their responsibilities are and who else will be influenced by risks, it’s much easier to strike a balance.

Ownership is Key

Accountability and ownership are different. Accountability can be assigned. For example, if you want an employee to accomplish a specific goal, you assign it and they must be accountable. Ownership, on the other hand, is taken. You can’t appoint someone to take ownership. Ownership happens when someone steps forward and decides to make something happen.

 How can you get your employees to take ownership? First off, hire people who love to take ownership. Improve communication with your existing employees, and use words that inspire teamwork. Let them turn “yours” into “ours.”

As you work to improve the soul of your company, you’ll see changes in outcomes, from the top of the hierarchy to the bottom. Remember that relationships matter, constructive feedback moves you forward, excellence can be institutionalised, intelligence risks make a difference, and ownership is key.