Breakfast strategy. Briefly: what is corporate culture Culture is a strategy for breakfast

- Where do you think the corporate culture development vector is heading today?

The corporate system is a system of formal and informal rules, customs, traditions, and behavioral styles. The carriers of the corporate culture are the employees of the company, and in the first place - the owners and managers.

Today, I think, all employers are most interested in ensuring that all elements of the corporate culture are aimed at increasing efficiency and increasing profits. For example, in order for the company to respond quickly and politely to the client and promptly resolve his issues; so that, given the complexity of bureaucratic systems, employees offer ideas to simplify processes. After all, just think about it: according to some Western studies, ordinary specialists spend an average of 67% (!) of their time on bureaucracy, managers - 15%, in Russia this percentage can be even higher ...

- In Korea, rivers flow in the workshops of factories, parrots fly, flowers grow ... How can all this affect staff, motivation, and work results?

The Hawthorne experiment of the early 20th century is widely known, which showed that ABOUT The socio-psychological climate, the attitude towards the employee, has a greater influence on the productivity of employees than many technical aspects of the production process, such as, for example, the illumination of the premises.

Improving working conditions is perceived as increasing attention and care for employees, therefore, it positively affects their motivation and work outcomes. I'll give you an example. The ChelPipe Group includes one of the most beautiful and at the same time highly productive workshops in the world - a workshop for the production of large-diameter pipes - Vysota 239. The workshop has been repeatedly recognized as a masterpiece in the field of industrial architecture. And we see that from the moment the workshop was launched, there is always a queue of applicants for each of its vacancies.

- What negative habits of our employees can most interfere with the formation of corporate culture? Previously drunk...

Nothing can interfere with the formation of a corporate culture. It cannot but be, it is always there, like air. Another question - which corporate culture adopted? Does it help or hinder the company's goals? If the company is loyal to drunkenness, absenteeism, this affects the formation of employee behavior. They may think: “Okay, I’ll have a drink before the shift, maybe it will cost!” As a result - accidents, absenteeism, loss of working time. If the company takes a tough approach to this issue, then the formed attitude of the employer will influence the choice of behavior of the employee, who, in a moment of weakness, will think about the risk of losing his job and make a different decision. For example, in our company, with an uncompromising approach to this issue, the number of detainees in a state of intoxication has decreased by 17 times over the year!

In my opinion, the most important thing today is the speed of response to changes: changes in the market, systems, processes, methods of personnel management. And today's most negative habit I can define as conservatism, closeness, unwillingness to change and admit that the world has changed, and we are either changing with it, or slowly dying.

- If shareholders do not set a goal and do not allocate a budget for the development of corporate culture, then can the HR department independently master this process?

Even if shareholders allocate a huge budget for the development of corporate culture, and only the HR department is engaged in this, then the task cannot be mastered. All costs will be far-fetched; maybe staff satisfaction will improve, that's all. There will be no real change in corporate culture.

The corporate culture is formed by the leaders and managers of the company with their daily behavior. A simple example. The company wants to change its corporate culture, make it more innovative, reconsider its market behavior strategy, declare to the staff that initiative and new ideas are welcomed and encouraged, and reflect this in its values. And, for example, a middle manager holds a meeting of his team, at which a new employee gets up and proposes to change some process in the direction of improvement, proposes a new idea. To which he receives the answer of the boss: “Mind your own business”, or “It happened historically”, or “Many people tried before you - nothing happened!” etc. How will the employee change his behavior? Most likely, he will never offer anything again, at least to this boss. What conclusions will the employee make? “The company has double standards,” he thinks, “you shouldn’t believe everything that they declare!” As Peter Drucker said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” and this is a real-life example of that exact saying.

- Let's take the “neglected” version of the corporate culture (acquisition of a plant), when such a corporate culture has spontaneously developed that does not allow efficient work. Is it possible and how to fix it?

First of all, it is necessary to change 80% of the leaders. It is absolutely useless to try to instill new rules and systems with the old management. Corporate culture is in the minds of people, and if there is inefficient work in their minds, then it is easier to change a person than to try to change his ideas and behavior. You need to leave loyal and ready to change professionals.

Further, it is important to clearly establish new rules and be consistent in their implementation: reward (in various public ways of non-material motivation) employees whose behavior corresponds to the new vision, and blame those who continue to act in the old traditions.

Of course, everything depends on the leader and the team that he manages to form. To date, the problem of leadership is number one, it occupies the minds of all businessmen in the world. Weak leadership potential of the company is a serious obstacle to changing the corporate culture and improving the company's efficiency. And, I think, this is a serious task for Russian companies - the development of leadership potential at all levels of business management.

- What is the difference between the behavior of leaders and subordinates? (The king should not carry out laws issued for subordinates?)

This approach is a path to failure. If a manager requires subordinates not to be late for meetings, and he himself is constantly late, by doing this he shows them extreme disrespect, which negatively affects the involvement of employees. What kind of inspiring leadership is there with such a leader? And today it is no secret to anyone how engagement affects the efficiency and profitability of the company, as well as the fact that engaged employees are 43% more productive than their unengaged colleagues and even 86% more creative (according to statistics from the University of California, Berkeley).

The leader is a role model of behavior. His subordinates will behave in the same way with their subordinates. After all, employees - they are like children - do not listen to what they are told, but watch and repeat. Accordingly, we need to answer the questions: what do we want to cascade? What model of behavior do we consider effective?

- Expats in Russia in PrK - previously they had a shock. Today?

In the companies I know, the number of expats has decreased. It is very difficult to apply your knowledge in another culture, and often in an aggressive environment, because we in Russia very often believe that we ourselves know everything and there is no need to teach us. We do not want to pay attention to the difference in efficiency and productivity, explaining the success of foreign companies with outsourcing and expensive equipment.

If we talk about expats not from the point of view of their shock, but from the point of view of benefit for Russian business, then I believe that they are able to bring benefits, but only in conditions very similar to their previous places of work: where a strategy is adopted, clear smart goals are set , evaluation criteria, feedback is provided regularly.

- The magazine "Personnel Management" talked with the leaders of a number of super-successful companies (1-2 thousand employees), where the goal is realized - a minimum of communications (only scripts) - precisely for the sake of preventing rumors and opposition. Is this an exception to the rule or a trend?

The human need for communication is almost as important as our need to drink, eat or breathe. No scripts will make people stop communicating and discussing the news, and even more so they will not replace live communication.

In the ChTPZ group, we often hold meetings with staff, and we have a well-organized system of communications and cascading information about the company's development, plans, achievements and market challenges. According to the results of the engagement survey, satisfaction with the Top Management factor increased by 10 points over the year - partly due to the presence of these same communications.

- What mistakes do companies still make in the field of corporate culture?

The biggest mistake is double standards. There is no need to declare what you are not ready to support. For example, today to tell the staff that we are open and our appointments are transparent, and tomorrow to appoint a relative who does not meet the professional and personal competencies. The non-transparency of payment systems, bonus amounts, dismissals, appointments and privileges, the system for selecting participants in a corporate holiday, the size and equipment of offices, the behavior of the head - all this affects the conclusions of employees about the real values ​​of the company and its priorities.

- What event related to the development of corporate culture do you remember from personal experience, what and why?

When we first conducted an engagement survey in the ChTPZ group, some managers told us: “Why do we need this? We make pipes, and you manage the staff!”

A year later, the same leaders in different situations told us: “No, we will not do this, it will affect the involvement of our staff! We will have to communicate and explain a lot with them.” Or yes! We are ready to make these changes, they will help us increase the involvement of the staff.” The very awareness of responsibility for the mood of our employees, the understanding of the importance of the human resource in achieving the goals of the company has changed, and this, in my opinion, is the most important change that reflects our development of corporate culture.

Svetlana Kuzminykh, HR Director, Pipe Division, ChTPZ Group

Interviewed by Alena Yurova

As Charles Handy famously put it, company culture is “how we do business here.” Edgar Schein argued that the company's culture is laid by the founders, and the business, even filled with thousands of employees, remains an extension of the personalities of its founders. Kathleen Eisenhardt explained the stubborn reproduction of the typical growth strategy by different generations of managers as "path dependence." In the management community (environment), this phenomenon is called organizational inertia and resistance to change is associated with it. “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” is what the great Peter Drucker once said. These words mean that companies are able to successfully implement only those long-term plans that are co-directed by their organizational culture. Everything that contradicts it will not work... The gurus spoke very clearly, and it would seem that there is nothing to add: culture deprives business of the opportunity to implement optimal (from the point of view of emerging external conditions) strategies. And that's bad.

But, for fun's sake, it's debatable. Stanisław Lem, in an annotation to Wilhelm Klopper's treatise Culture as a Mistake (both Klopper and the treatise are Lem's inventions) writes: "Culture is a tool for adaptation of a new type, because it ... serves to shone in a halo of supreme and perfect necessity. And this means that culture, through its own religions, laws, covenants and prohibitions, acts in such a way as to turn discontent into an ideal, minuses into pluses, shortcomings into virtues, wretchedness into perfection. That is, translating Klopper-Lem's thought into a managerial context, culture for a company is an immune system that ensures survival in a hostile environment. Culture, destroying harmful plans, destroying poisonous ideas of change, does not allow business to embark on suicidal “optimal for the prevailing external conditions” adventures ... In other words, it is very good that corporate culture has breakfast with strategies.

And no matter how amazing your plans to bring a new product to market were, if, in the end, culture distorts execution. Organizational is, in fact, how it is customary to do work in your company. Good leaders never deprive the culture of the organization of attention, and devote as much time to it as to development strategies.

What mistakes should be avoided if you want to build, aimed at achieving the desired results?

1. Focus on those who resist.

One of the biggest pitfalls is that leaders focus on those who resist change. The logic of their reasoning is this: "If I win them over to my side and enlist support, then everyone else will follow." Unfortunately, this only alienates even more those who would just like to help and assist in your endeavors to introduce a new effective high-performance culture.

2. Underestimate the "big goal".

Every person wants to be a part of something greater than herself - it is part of human nature. This “big goal” awakens our “better self” in us and inspires us to accomplish. Leaders who ignore this are, in fact, rejecting the natural human essence and do not achieve high results in building culture in the organization.

3. Spend time in meetings.

The presence, direct participation and accessibility of the leader has a great influence on the team. Creates an atmosphere of trust and involvement. If you are always busy in some kind of meetings, then you are deliberately missing out on a major opportunity in creating a healthy climate in the organization. Regardless of where you are and what you do, the culture in the organization will evolve and change, but the question is, is it in the direction you need?

4. Do not share information.

Sometimes you need to listen to the message seven times in order to accurately assimilate the transmitted meaning. When you share information, you should not expect that everything will be clear to everyone the first time. Make sure everyone understands exactly what is required of them. Clarity is the key to a positive culture.

5. Limited thinking or "bunker mentality".

When you change something in one part, you should anticipate and understand how this change will affect other areas of the organization. Blinded consciousness is the enemy of efficiency. This approach limits ideas and weakens the productivity of the organization. Your company is a single organism, and even a small change in one part has an impact on the entire system as a whole.

6. Spread negativity.

Even if you don't like the decision or strategy your organization has adopted, as a leader, you set the tone. Be careful how you express your opinion and what mood you create. Spreading negativity, even unintentionally, creates an unhealthy oppositional culture that ultimately hampers results.

7. Think only in the short term.

Focusing only on current profits is a kind of business trap. Although, of course, this is one of the important metrics, but do not forget that only in a short period. This kind of thinking turns a global task into a routine, and directs our behavior to perform exclusively current tasks, losing sight of long-term perspectives, strategies and solutions. Good leaders know how to find the right balance between short and long term planning and thinking.

8. Promotion of pronounced individualism.

There is no such individual employee who would be worth the whole team. When you single out favorites and give them unlimited freedom, you deprive yourself of the opportunity to hear new ideas coming from the rest of the team. Strength in solidarity. Promote a culture of teamwork, not flashy individualism.

9. Downplaying relationships.

Our brain is so arranged, we think about relationships. It is a kind of primitive instinct, a need, if you like, to communicate with others of their own kind. And it would be foolish not to use this property when building a culture of communication between team members and within the organization. Bring people together, promote communication within the organization, and create a culture of togetherness.

10. Do not take into account social needs.

Mistakes 8 and 9 get into biology - our need to do important, purposeful and meaningful work on an equal footing with others. Therefore, summing up the denominator, when building a culture, it is important to take into account the need of a person in society. A good leader encourages behavior that helps maintain and strengthen friendships. It is a culture that encourages communication and personal growth. Employees don't just want to come into the office and leave on schedule, they want an experience filled with meaning and meaning.

In conclusion.

Culture in the organization will arise in any case, whether you like it or not. The question is: do you want some sort of “default” culture, or do you still want to build an organizational culture that will pursue the main goals and objectives of the organization? In my opinion the answer is obvious.

Based on an interview with Shaun Murphy

(Executive Director, WorkIQ)

What is the difference between companies that use the same technologies, create similar products and attract similar specialists to the staff? Office interiors, breadth or, on the contrary, compactness of the proposed social package? In fact, as a rule, the main difference lies in the corporate culture.

Imagine: the head of the department, returning from the planning meeting, emotionally swore obscenities in the presence of employees. In the presence of a newcomer, the team leader puts a pack of milk from the refrigerator into a bag - the company will not even notice this, but you won’t have to go to the store. The CEO approved bonuses for a decade of the company's work: both the janitor and the chief accountant received the same amount as the first hired employees. These examples perfectly demonstrate how different companies treat employees, what company property is, what a manager values ​​- loyalty or performance.

Corporate culture is the norms and patterns of behavior that determine the activities of all employees of the company and the relationship between them. More briefly, this set of unspoken rules can be described by the phrase: "They do it that way."

Often these rules are not spelled out in corporate documents, but after a month of work, a new employee somehow "reads" the unspoken norms and begins to act using them. And what else are the features of culture?

Corporate culture eats strategy for breakfast

No matter how ambitious plans a company sets for itself, no matter how global its goals are, all projects will remain only beautiful presentations if they do not take into account the specifics of the corporate culture. Hence the well-known expression “Corporate culture eats strategy for breakfast”, which is attributed to the famous management theorist Peter Drucker: if the strategy is contrary to the traditions that have developed in the company, corporate culture will win it.

The leader and his inner circle participate in the formation of culture and its transmission

And the frequent request to the HR director: “And form the right corporate culture for us,” is absolutely erroneous in its formulation. A simple example: if the CEO arrives at the office by 11-12 o'clock, then no orders or explanations will force the team to be in the office at 9:00.

Culture change starts with deeds, not slogans

Moreover, mere "policies", "regulations" and adaptation materials are perceived negatively if there is a difference between what is written and what happens in reality. You can, of course, write the values ​​of the company on the walls, make newsletters and letters about encouraged behavior, but this will only work in one case - when the first persons live and work as they declare. Irina, head of corporate sales of a telecommunications company, says: “When our director walked around the office, he could easily pick up a dropped sticker or fix the baseboard. And the idea that the office is our home somehow got into the minds of colleagues.”

Parties and corporate events are not a culture

Former Netflix HR director Patty McCord once said that you can throw parties and give T-shirts to employees endlessly, but if the company is not doing well, then people will quietly resent at parties, and T-shirts will be used to wash their cars.

The language of values ​​is universal

Find people with a similar cultural code instead of retraining and re-educating. Employees with a request for a “power vertical” will not be able to work in cross-functional teams where you need to take responsibility, negotiate and make decisions together. And candidates with a request for development and independence will simply “suffocate” in companies with a narrow area of ​​​​responsibility and unpreparedness of managers for initiatives “from below”.

Culture should be developed along with business. Otherwise, it will become a bottleneck for growth. The main sign of an effective corporate culture is the achievement of the company's goals, quick communication within and controlled employee turnover.

If you want to dive a little deeper into this topic, we recommend starting with these books:

1. "Leader and Tribe" by Dave Logan, Haley Fisher-Wright and John King.
2. Delivering Happiness by Tony Shay.
3. "Corporate Culture and Values" by McKinsey Authors.
4. "Corporate Lifecycle Management", Yitzhak Calderon Adizes.
5. "Discovering the Organizations of the Future" Frederic Laloux.

Culture eats strategy for breakfast (culture eats strategy for breakfast). This phrase belongs to Peter Drucker, an American economist, one of the most prominent management theorists of the last century. The first impression I hear is disbelief. It would seem, what does such a subjective concept as “culture” have to do with it, when modern business management practice (company strategy) is subject to clearly formulated, strictly defined laws? But, oddly enough, culture really wins.

Yes, the strategy today occupies a leading position - it is its development and implementation that the owners see as the basis for a successful business. However, in reality, it turns out that the definition of a particular strategy, as well as the achievement of the goals indicated in it, is impossible without taking into account the corporate culture.

So, according to the consulting company HayGroup, “happy” employees are 43% more productive than their “unhappy” colleagues and 86% more creative (statistics from the University of California, Berkeley). Forbes notes that happy employees are 65% less likely to take sick leave, and American psychologist Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology, claims that they have 37% higher sales. As a result, companies with a higher sense of purpose and employee engagement outperform competitors by more than 27% in terms of profitability. Eventually, in 2009, Amazon.com acquired Zappos.com for $1.2 billion, which uses happiness as a business model.

What is culture in relation to business? Generally speaking, it is a set of values ​​that company employees rely on when making decisions. That is, corporate culture includes many aspects: from the style of work adopted in the company to the values ​​it promotes. But the main thing to note is the understanding that culture is the main way to carry out organizational activities.

Peter Drucker's quote reflects this corporate law: culture over strategy. Imagine that a company adopts a new strategy, such as aggressive growth: win 10% of the market share annually. And this strategy is proposed by the new CEO, implementing such measures as the creation of a new marketing strategy, the development of new sales channels, and so on. However, it is up to the management team to directly implement this set of measures. In the event that it consists of people whose value system (that same culture) does not correspond to the new strategy, it is unlikely to be implemented. So, if the new course of development involves quick decision-making, and top management is not ready to think outside the box, take additional risks, act dynamically, the CEO will waste time trying to convince his subordinates that they will still act as they are used to. As a result, the implementation of the strategy will be constantly hampered by the need to convince employees of the correctness of decisions.

This problem is often faced by companies when looking for a new CEO.

It would seem that the candidate has been found, the previous work experience is completely satisfactory, he has led companies out of similar situations more than once or twice. But all previous experience must be viewed through the context in which the CEO achieved the relevant results. For example, at a previous place of work, a stake was placed on individuality, individual efforts of a person, and in our company a focus on collegiality was adopted. Or the CEO is used to working in a directive manner - he said, and everyone ran to do it. And in our company, everything is built on partnerships, everyone is equal, and you need to “sell” your idea so that everyone starts implementing it.

Controversies like these crop up all the time and usually lead to CEO resignations. Less common is the option in which the entire top management of the company or, ultimately, the very strategy of its development is changed. So, in March of this year, Michael Touch was appointed CEO of M.Video. He worked for only about five months - and left the company in August. It happened just because of the conflict of cultures. The culture of the company was to make informed decisions based on careful analysis: everything is like the saying “measure twice, cut once”. And Michael's approach was to try to launch as many innovations as possible, initiatives that would allow the company to gain competitive advantages in the market more quickly.

The problem of "clash of cultures" is universal, it exists everywhere. For example, in August of this year, the CEO of Barnes & Noble's, the largest bookstore chain in the United States, Ron Boyr, was dismissed. After not having worked in the company for a year, he was fired with the wording "for inconsistency with corporate culture."

In 2007, a terrible scandal erupted around the German concern Siemens, capable of burying a company that existed on the market in the middle of the 19th century. The scandal was linked to corruption investigations. As a result, the previous head of the company resigned. His place was taken by Peter Löscher - for the first time, a non-German and a person who had not previously worked at Siemens was in this post. To maintain the company's reputation, Löscher resorted to serious measures: he changed almost 70% of the managing directors and half of the management. He was named the best CEO of the year by several German publications at once, but in 2013 he was fired. The culture of the company turned out to be too different - he could not take root, adapt to it, she rejected him.

Issues of corporate culture rarely seriously concern shareholders and owners. At the same time, it is she who makes an immeasurable contribution to the efficiency of the company.

The culture of the company can decide the fate of any well-thought-out strategy and deprive the most experienced leaders of their jobs.

Good corporate culture models serve as a breeding ground for innovation, growth, market leadership, ethical behavior and customer satisfaction. An inert culture can completely destroy business efficiency, not only reduce customer satisfaction and loyalty, but also demotivate employees themselves. Therefore, this aspect should not be underestimated. If you're looking for a CEO, look not only at his previous experience and ideas for your company, but also ask how he plans to bring those ideas to life. If you yourself are a future CEO, correctly assess your strengths: whether you can fit into the existing culture or whether you have the strength to change it.