The importance of preserving company culture

Preserve your organisational culture by guarding it carefully as your company grows, writes leadership expert Tommy Weir.

“The completion was set for late 2015, but that has been delayed to spring 2016,” declared the managing director of a renowned regional company. Knowing this company used to have a reputation for delivering against all odds, I wondered how a business – once revered for its pioneering achievement – is now known for its delays.

The subtlest decisions can unintentionally create erosion that may take years to surface, but when it does become apparent the foundation may be beyond repair. While erosion is a natural process, leadership activities, or a lack of them, increase the rate at which erosion is occurring organisationally.

The fundamentals – fast growth, extreme diversity, pioneering – that make this a distinct and exciting market are the very fundamentals that can lead to the erosion of culture if it is not carefully guarded. Culture is like the nucleus of an atom; it is the heart of an organisation representing its central and most important element for sustainable success. Culture forms the basis for your business activity and growth.

The most likely to place to experience culture rot is through hiring. In the midst of rapid growth, the nucleus of culture is watered down and shrinks in proportion to the new inputs that come with each new hire. On the surface, we argue that fresh blood is really important, and it is. But if the culture is not carefully preserved, it will subtly erode over time as each new employee does not know the history and obviously brings outside influences reshaping the inside of your company.

To illustrate this, let’s look to Emirates Airline. It has to work doubly and even triply hard to preserve the essence of its brand given its past and future growth. The airline has not been shy when it comes to growing and sharing its growth ambition. Over a short period of six years, its workforce size is projected to double. What does this mean?

The quick answer is to say that it means half the employees will be new; actually that figure goes up to 75 per cent when you consider an average attrition rate – therefore three out of four employees will be new. Each one will bring his or her strengths, expertise and culture, meaning that the majority of the organisational cultural will come from outside the company, which highlights the premise of subtle culture erosion.

Many corporations have to face the stark reality of a potentially deteriorating culture; every growing company that hires new people has to address the reality of the consistency and size of the nucleus of culture shrinking compared to what it was. This is what can turn a company once known for pioneering achievements into having a reputation for delays. Although culture rot is often slow, it eats up the culture from the inside.

So does this mean a company should stop growing to maintain its culture? Of course not. But don’t ignore this reality in the midst of your growth.

Growing companies risk eroding their culture and this risk is heightened when you are facing extreme diversity, as every company in the UAE does.

Maintaining and promoting culture requires more than spending a few hours in an induction programme and executing a poster campaign. Culture is far more than the policies and procedures – it is the employees’, in addition to the organisation’s, capacity to classify and represent the essence of the company. It is the distinct ways that employees act out the learnt behaviour patterns that are characteristic of the company.

What makes guarding culture so difficult is that is intangible; it is represented in the language and customs of the employees. It’s really a waste of time for a company to try to reduce it to a few phrases in the hope this will make their essences transferable. Culture passes from generation to generation through stories and what is celebrated.

You’re better off becoming great at telling the stories that embody your culture to mould and shape your new recruits. Stories are memorable, sticky – they have a moral that people can relate to and they elevate what is expected. Become a cultural storyteller.

Tommy Weir is a leadership adviser and author of 10 Tips for Leading in the Middle East and other leadership writings. Follow him on Twitter: @tommyweir

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