Business Culture – The Best Competitive Edge

45-95% of workers are thinking about quitting their jobs, looking for another job and/or industry, depending on which survey you believe in! The top two reasons are burnout and business culture. Business owners are wondering why? A simple answer is: it is you and your business culture.

In the business world, culture expresses goals through values, beliefs, and guides activity through shared assumptions and group norms. Business culture is the intangible atmosphere of your company. It is the personality or the glue that holds everyone together. It is a feeling of belonging and of shared purpose. Strategy offers a formal logic for the company’s goals and orients people around them. Strategy provides clarity and focuses on collective action and decision-making. An effective culture can be a springboard for strategic change.

In case you want to figure out about your business culture, simply imagine you are a fly on the wall in your employees and customers’ dining room and listen carefully to how they talk about you and your business culture with their spouse and children. That is the truth; the way they feel about you and your business culture. We do not need elaborate and expensive Market Research for that.

Business leaders who are not adapting to change will be struggling for business survival; forget about growth. The digital transformation, the pandemic, changing competitive landscape, and customers’ buying process have turned businesses upside down. However, lots of businesses are enjoying exponential growth as their leaders have adapted to change. We can all learn from them.

A few businesses with Business Culture and Innovation as their Competitive Edges: Microsoft, Google, Apple, Disney, Salesforce, Netflix, Nvidia, Zappos, HubSpot, Pepsi, Unilever, Panera Bread, Chipotle, Four Rivers, Chobani, Southwest Airlines, Costco, Publix, Whole Foods, Starbucks, Ikea, J&J, P&G, Spanx, Warby Parker, to name a few.

“Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first” – Simon Sinek

Shan Shanbhag, Ph.D.
Mentor and Business Development Advisory
Principal, Shanbhag Enterprises
[email protected]
407-718-8115