Corporate Culture – The Performance Driver

At a gathering of business people, I was approached by a mid-aged entrepreneur. He wanted me to advise him how small companies can introduce “Corporate Culture”?

I said “to me corporate culture is to do with people’s behavior at work and it starts with the BOSS. He is the one who creates vision and practice some specific values”.

When Vision and Values penetrate in the day-to-day working practice of the rest of the team, some specific systems or “Behaviors” emerge and become “Corporate Culture” of that particular company.

Readers would agree with me that entrepreneurs, particularly owners that run smaller companies, often get busy in FIRE FIGHTING and ignore the fact that their own believes are fundamental to determining corporate culture in their organizations and in the long run, vision and values are the two factors help shape the work environment and serve as performance drivers.

In my seventeen years of engagement with the British Deputy High Commission, I observed that in some cases, corporate culture exist by default, however, in smaller and younger organizations, owner’s behavior determines the direction.

So the challenge for you gentlemen is to create good values at your workplace, the corporate culture will emerge automatically!

Team Work – An essential factor for Successful Businesses

My discussions with entrepreneurs, staff and board reveal that they all put lots of emphasis on team work. And strongly believe that the most important factor in making an enterprise profitable is “TEAM WORK”, yet almost none could define team work in simple language. The answers I get are:

Team work means ---------------

• Unity
• Together Everyone Achieves Miracles.
• Achieving set goals through collective group effort
• Corroborative action with all the people involved to gain a single goal/ objective
• Achieving mutually agreed objective through collective efforts with out becoming free rider
• Helps in achieving the vision through smart objective.
• Patience
• Submission
• Teamwork is a coordinated effort which allows each member to maximize his/her strengths and minimize his/her weaknesses.
• Teamwork is that when synergies of the team get larger than the sum of individual potentials....may sound too idealistic but that is what an ideal team should be
• It is when no one cares who gets the credit for the success
• This is the "soul" to work as a Team! If this soul is absent, it becomes individualism

To me these are excellent explanations, but a bit more theoretical! I tell them that they need to understand the concept and explain in simple language, otherwise the concept would not cascade down to the lowest levels; making team work a rear phenomenon!

My understanding of “TEAM WORK” is very simple!

Lets watch small clips of a field hockey match or a team of hyena on hunt.

Observe that in both cases, there are teams, the forward player or attacker focuses on the ball or in case of hyena at targeted animal, whereas the rest of the team focuses on the forward player or attacker. Also observe the mental coordination that helps in coordinated moves to strengthen the attack.

This is a great learning for me! Can you develop such team sprit?

If Hyena could do it, you can too……..

First Step towards Building Your Personality!

Other day, I was thinking about different personalities, some good, some not so good. The thought process went on, and my mind started a debate “Why do we have some specific personalities? and is it really possible to train our brain to switch our personalities?”

My logical brain responded, yes! personality can be switched but only if there is a realization of what we are and what we want to be. Perhaps learning to watch your own self is the key in identifying your personality.

Throughout a normal day, we do several things, such as walking, sitting, talking, reading, eating etc. Our ability to watch our self keeps the brain in alert state.

In this state your third eye becomes observant of your personality.
This is the first stage of realization. The change begins when we are able to realize what we are…………try will help improve your personality.