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Strong cultures empower their people, they recognize their talents, and give them a very clear role with responsibilities they’re accountable for. It’s amazing how basic this is, but how absent the principle is in many businesses.

How to hold people accountable? How to create a corporate culture of accountability and hold people accountable? How to create a high performance organization? Actually, it’s SIMPLE:

S = Set expectations
I = Invite commitment
M = Measure progress
P = Provide feedback
L = Link to consequences
E = Evaluate effectiveness

A SIMPLE approach to high performance organization:

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Culture is not something companies can add on as “decor”

To survive and grow, and even regain competitive advantage, many companies are grappling with ways to transform their businesses in the face of radical change.

They are responding in many predictable and time-tested ways: Changing CEOs and leadership teams, shifting strategies, rolling out new product lines, amping up innovation, cutting costs and restructuring.

These are all the necessary things to do to react to change, but these actions usually only treat the symptoms of a chronic illness – hardening of corporate arteries – without curing the underlying cause. Companies may be missing out on the most important strategy of all: Creating a culture of agility.

Culture is not something companies can add on as “decor” once the building is complete, it is the foundation on which the house is built. Top 14+ must reads on organizational culture:

# 1 – Why care about corporate culture

Anyone can copy a company’s strategy, but nobody can copy their culture! Culture is key to building a company

#2 – It’s not enough anymore to just create the strategy

Culture and strategy need to eat lunch together – Culture is either driving the strategy or undermining it!

#3 – Is culture more important than strategy

The most important thing about culture is that it’s the only sustainable point of difference for any organization. Anyone can copy your strategy, but nobody can copy your culture.

#4 – Toxic organizational culture – organizational roadblocks

Why are so many organization’s continuous improvement initiatives not working? In many cases, the organizational culture is the roadblock that impede continuous improvement programs.

In the wrong environment, these ever-popular, costly programs are a waste of resources.

Don’t let these toxic phrases – “we have always done it that way!”, “doesn’t matter what we say – nothing will change”, “that’s the way we do things around here!”, “trust me …. that won’t work here!” etc. – destroy continuous improvement program. Better deal proactively with them!

#5 – Titanic sank after colliding with an iceberg

Some aspects of organizational culture are visible on the surface, like the tip of an iceberg, while others are implicit and submerged within the organization.

It seems quite ironic, that organizations are often not aware, or may choose to ignore the attributes that are beneath the surface and not seen.  Sometimes leaders make decisions only on that is visible to them.

#6 – Killed by a corporate culture of complacency

Complacency almost always comes from a sense of success and lives long after the success that created it has disappeared. Organizations that are complacent do not look for new opportunities or hazards.

#7 – Organizational values

Core values are what support the vision, shape the organizational culture and reflect what the company values. They are the essence of the company’s identity – the principles, beliefs or philosophy of values.

#8 – The operating system that powers the organization

Company value statements typically have a tendency to be a bit vague and lacking instructions that tell employees what the most important guidelines are for the company. That’s way it make sense to add organizational guidelines – culture code, the operating system that powers the organization.

#9 – The organizational Pac-Man is always hungry

Culture is today’s major performance differentiator. Culture creates the foundation for strategy and will either be a company’s greatest asset or largest liability.

Successful execution of strategy depends very much upon the organizational culture. Don’t leave the organizational Pac-Man unattended!

#10 – Managing organizational culture

High-performance organizations set, manage, and monitor their culture to achieve strategic objectives. They start by defining the desired culture required to enable their strategy, then define values that align with their culture and intentionally cultivate these in their workforce.

#11 – Successful rowing eights operate as a unit

The most critical element in any strategy is its translation into reality. The only true measure of success is in its execution. And one of the key determinants of successful strategy implementation is organizational alignment.

#12 – Measuring organizational alignment

As the world becomes progressively more competitive and globalized, companies need to align their organization with the market and customers’ requirements. Measuring organizational alignment allows companies to identify backsliding, correct course where needed and demonstrate tangible evidence of improvement – which can help to maintain positive momentum over the long haul.

#13 – Organizational culture eats strategy for breakfast, lunch and dinner

Does culture eat strategy for breakfast, lunch and dinner? The answer is YES! To strengthen a company’s culture get ready for a time of deep, reflective thinking.

#14 – The relationship between culture and strategy

Corporate culture is an incredibly powerful factor in a company’s long-term success. No matter how good a companies strategy is, when it comes down to it, people always make the difference. A strategy that is at odds with a company’s culture is doomed. Culture trumps strategy every time.

Every organization that excels at building, reinforcing, and leveraging their unique culture in support of delivering sustainable performance has built a strong “culture foundation”.

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What is organizational culture?

One of the most important building blocks for a highly successful organization and an extraordinary workplace is “organizational culture”.

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The importance of culture in organizations

The most important thing about culture is that it’s the only sustainable point of difference for any organization. Anyone can copy a company’s strategy, but nobody can copy their culture. But what is organizational culture?

• Culture is how organizations do things
• The values and behaviors that contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of an organization
• Organizational culture defines a jointly shared description of an organization from within
• Organizational culture is the sum of values and rituals which serve as “glue” to integrate the members of the organization
• Organizational culture is a system of shared assumptions, values, and beliefs, which governs how people behave in organizations
• Organizational culture is civilization in the workplace
• Organizational culture refers to the philosophies, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors and practices that define an organization
• Culture is the organization’s immune system
• It over simplifies the situation in large organizations to assume there is only one culture… and it’s risky for new leaders to ignore the sub-cultures

Organizational culture is like an iceberg

Culture is like an iceberg, with most of its weight and bulk below the surface. Don’t leave the organizational iceberg unattended!

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Non-financial factors play a prominent role

A global analysis from Mercer – conducted among nearly 30,000 employees in 17 geographic markets reveals that non-financial factors play a prominent role in influencing employee motivation and engagement.

Being treated with respect is the most important factor

Employees worldwide say that being treated with respect is the most important factor, followed by work/life balance, type of work, quality of co-workers and quality of leadership (see figure).

While other financial factors, such as benefits and incentive pay, can be important to other aspects of the employment deal – such as attracting, retaining and rewarding employees – Mercer’s research shows they are considered less important by employees when it comes to their day-to-day motivation and engagement at work.

Motivated employees are an asset to all organizations

Motivated employees are an asset to all organizations. They propel the organization forward by positively influencing the work climate, attitudes, customer orientation and, ultimately, organizational performance.

Remember: “You don’t build a business – you build people – and then people build the business”.

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Ignoring what’s below the organizations surface

Ignoring what’s below the surface is what will ultimately undermine organizational transformation.

Change can difficult – be mindful of things below the organization’s surface! Changing organizational culture is one of the most difficult leadership challenges there is!

Watch out for “We have always done it that way”, “That’s not the way we do things around here”, “We are different” etc. These phrases and others like it typically refers to the complex, subtle practices that become ingrained in an organization’s culture, to the point where they become part of its identity. Don’t underestimate how powerful these sentences are!

Habitual thoughts and behaviors are not bad in themselves; indeed, they are often the basis for what a company does well. But when circumstances shift or the company becomes dysfunctional, those habits may need substantive change.

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Complacency is a dangerous culture

Complacency is a dangerous culture that permeates beyond the walls of mega corporations and extends into the reaches of every day companies and institutions.

Complacency almost always comes from a sense of success and lives long after the success that created it has disappeared. Organizations and individuals that are complacent do not look for new opportunities or hazards.

When the organizational culture needs to change

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A corporate culture of complacency ignores opportunities, big and small

Complacency ignores opportunities, big and small. It turns a blind eye to serious and dangerous threats. It hushes innovative ideas. It stomps on energy, enthusiasm and anything new. It hangs on to the old ways of doing things with white, arthritic knuckles. It doesn’t want to hear or see what is happening in the world. Learning new things is not up for discussion. It is of no concern to those who are complacent.

They are almost always internally focused and they do what has worked for them in the past. They pay insufficient attention to new opportunities and frightening new hazards.

In a talk to employees, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop asked a question that many were probably afraid to answer truthfully, given how Nokia is struggling to combat the iPhone. When he asks how many people in the crowd use an iPhone or Android device, few hands go up:

That upsets me-not because some of you are using iPhones, but because only a small number of people are using iPhones. I’d rather people have the intellectual curiosity to understand what we’re up against.

In a fast-moving and changing world, a sleepy or steadfast contentment with the status quo can create disaster.

The fight against corporate complacency

Some companies seems to be dealing very proactively with complacency – in it’s value statement Northwood has declared “war” against corporate complacency:

If the culture of an organization is one of complacency, and mediocrity, the interaction might be an average, or below average experience. If the culture is one of excellence, commitment, honesty and integrity, the experience will likely be entirely different. The culture at Northwoods will always be the latter of the two. Complacency and mediocrity are not qualities of our employees and therefore will never have a place in our corporate culture (Our Corporate Culture)

And Hyundai:

We refuse to be complacent, embrace every opportunity for greater challenge, and are confident in achieving our goals with unwavering passion and ingenious thinking

How to avoid a corporate culture of complacency

• Make people feel uncomfortable. People need to be challenged and made less certain
• Cultivate nightmare scenarios – “what if” situations
• Invite skeptical outsiders to comment on what you feel complacent about
• If it ain’t broke, consider breaking it
• Investigate how new disruptive technology could “alter our situation for the better or worse”
• Ask “How could we do this 10 ten times better?”
• Benchmark against someone entirely different, if your present comparison merely re-enforces your certainty
• Don’t just fight complacency, invest in innovation

Don’t fall into the comfortable trap

As Apple launched the iPhone a couple of years ago Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was laughing about the launch in an interview with CNBC. Two years later, the iPhone is a huge success and has much more market share than Microsoft in the smartphone segment.

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Great corporate culture doesn’t just happen

Step inside any company, no matter the size, stage of development, or level of success, and the culture is either driving the strategy or undermining it. To exist in the first place, a company must have a clear purpose, a deliberate intent, and a set of ideas that it uses to pursue a clear goal – but it’s the people who have to execute it.

But let’s face it – great corporate culture doesn’t just happen – leaders need to make it happen. Creating a high performance culture require many different elements. Is unlimited vacation policy one of them?

Freedom and responsibility culture

Co-founder Reed Hastings recently told Bloomberg Businessweek that Netflix has an unlimited vacation policy:

We want responsible people who are self-motivating and self-disciplined, and we reward them with freedom. The best example is our vacation policy. It’s simple and understandable: We don’t have one. We focus on what people get done, not on how many days they worked

At Netflix, we think you have to build a sense of responsibility where people care about the enterprise. Hard work, like long hours at the office, doesn’t matter as much to us. We care about great work. This requires thoughtful, mature high-performance employees

Hasting explained how the idea evolved:

My first company, Pure Software, was exciting and innovative in the first few years and bureaucratic and painful in the last few before it got acquired. The problem was we tried to systemize everything and set up perfect procedures. We thought that was a good thing, but it killed freedom and responsibility. After the company was acquired, I reflected on what went wrong.

In an effort to separate itself from bureaucratic corporations, Netflix abandoned the typical vacation allotment to opt for a sky’s-the-limit plan.

Netflix isn’t the only company that has jumped on the all-you-want vacation bandwagon. IBM has a famously flexible time-off policy — letting employees leave early and take a day off on short notice, just so long as they have a handle on their workloads.

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Driving cultural change

The hardest part of a business transformation is changing the organizational culture – the mindset and instincts of the people in the company. Organizational culture is like an iceberg, with most of its weight and bulk below the surface.

An existing culture is based on shared philosophies, ideologies, values.assumptions, beliefs and attitudes. Transforming, sustaining and allowing for evolution of  a  culture is a complex process requiring a clearly articulated strategic aim, underpinning objectives and long term programme coordination and mobilization of resources.

So, what are the keys to CREATE a cultural change?

Don’t shortcut the process of cultural change

Organizations may try to shortcut the process of cultural change by:

• Changing practices without changing values – Leaders often create new programs or policies without attempting to change the underlying beliefs that guide individual choices. Employees and supervisors who don’t believe in the change will at best not support it, and at worst undermine it.
• Confusing “espoused” values with underlying values – Leaders often develop and publish new values, but forget to work on changing employees’ beliefs about how the world works. Ignoring what’s below the surface is what will ultimately undermine organizational transformation.

Patience and persistence is required

Any cultural change involves changing the mindset and instincts of each person in the company. This does not happen overnight.  So, patience and persistence is required to continue down the path for the one to three years it will often take to realize a full and complete cultural change in your organization.

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Top 4 corporate culture infographics

From what is organizational culture to CREATE a culture change:

#1 – What is organizational culture

Anyone can copy a company’s strategy, but nobody can copy their culture! Culture is key to building a company. It is either driving the strategy or undermining it! If culture can help foster strategic initiatives, it also can spell their downfall!

But what is organizational culture?

#2 – Barriers to organizational change

The brutal fact is that about 70% of all change initiatives fail. But why?

The most general lesson to be learned from the many studies is that organizational culture is the most common barriers.

# 3 – Below the organizations surface

Some aspects of organizational culture are visible on the surface, like the tip of an iceberg, while others are implicit and submerged within the organization.

Because these ingrained assumptions are tacit and below the surface, they are not easy to see or deal with, although they affect everything the organization does.

#4 – How to CREATE a culture change

An existing culture is based on shared philosophies, ideologies, values, assumptions, beliefs and attitudes.

Transforming, sustaining and allowing for evolution of a culture is a complex process requiring a clearly articulated strategic aim, underpinning objectives and long term programme coordination and mobilization of resources.

So, what are the keys to CREATE a cultural change?

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Why not embrace laughter and humor into corporate culture

Laughing should be a crucial ingredient when drafting the corporate culture change, especially in work environments that are intense, high-pressure and passionate.

Laughter is in fact a product of humor and instilling it at work creates a positive environment that builds bonds between colleagues, encourages positive and innovative thinking – creates better communication and eliminates negative attitudes. The result of which is increased productivity and profitability.

Creating an environment where humor – and laughter – is viewed positively will create a place of enjoyment. It’s this enjoyment that will create a more productive, more efficient workforce where everybody will feel more engaged with the business.

If one would ask executives about humor in the workplace, many would say “yes, we have a great sense of humor around here.” That may be, but why are so many people unhappy at their jobs? Clearly, humor involves more than just water cooler banter and email jokes. Executives at many companies are doing little to evolve their cultures to embrace humor as a corporate value despite the fact that morale a cross many companies needs serious cosmetic surgery!

Never be used as a quick fix for employee engagement problems

Before getting carried away with the concept of humor and laughter at work, there is some small print that leaders should be made aware of … Using humor certainly won’t suit every organization and should never be used as a quick fix for employee engagement problems.

For humor to flourish, an environment needs to exist that employees feel welcome, comfortable and relaxed within. This will then naturally inspire people to express themselves – from which humor will organically grow and with it so will laughter.

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The key to successful business is agility

With most economic indicators suggesting that the Great Recession is coming to an end, it’s tempting for a business that has successfully weathered the storm to breathe a sigh of relief and look forward to business as usual. But experience tells us that complacency is the worst mistake a business can make!

The most important strategy

Many companies are missing out on the most important strategy of all: Creating a culture of agility. But this should be every companies first strategic priority because it is the culture that enables companies to flex nimbly in any direction and execute any strategy.

Agile cultures translate into forward thinking and innovation, eschewing the “that’s the way we do things around here”, “we have always done it that way” etc. etc. mentality that causes companies to freeze, and then fall quickly behind.

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But how to define organizational agility?

This is a great definition of organizational agility by Lee Dyer and Richard A. Shafer of Cornell University:

Organizational agility is the capacity to be infinitely adaptable without having to change. Agile organizations strive to develop a built-in capacity to shift, flex, and adjust, either alone or with alliance partners, as circumstances change, and to do so as a matter of course.

Being infinitely adaptable is the key here, and there’s really only one way to do that: Create the culture that has the built-in capacity for agility.

Agility is linked to profitable growth: Massachusetts Institute of Technology research suggests that agile firms grow revenue 37 percent faster and generate 30 percent higher profits than non-agile companies.

What are the main barriers to agility?

Internal barriers – the culture – prevent organizations from being agile.

The barriers include hubris, complacency and resistance to change, poor decision-making, lack of alignment around strategies, vision and values, risk-averse mindsets, siloed thinking and turf wars.

The first strategic priority

Creating a culture of agility is possible and should be the first strategic priority because it is the culture that spawns an organization’s ability to adjust in any direction and execute any strategy.

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The corporate culture dilemma

The top pressure for any organization today is to move faster in an era of less predictable outcomes: Markets shift faster,  technology is obsolete sooner and customers have higher expectations. As a result, many companies are plagued by change overload!

Culture is critically important to business success worldwide, according to “Culture and Change Management Survey”, conducted by Booz & Company. Key findings:

• 84 percent of respondents and 86 percent of C-suite respondents believe that their organization’s culture is critical to business success.
• 60 percent said culture is more important than the company’s strategy or operating model.
• 96 percent said some form of culture change is needed within their organization.
• 51 percent believe their organization is in need of a major culture overhaul.
• 45 percent do not think their culture is being effectively managed.

Leaders must learn how to tap company culture as an enabler of speed, so this essential asset can become fuel for profitable growth in a change-driven era.

Corporate culture comics

How does Dilbert see the current status of corporate culture? Dilbert is a comic strip written and illustrated by Scott Adams. Dilbert is known for its satirical office humor about a white-collar, micromanaged office featuring the engineer Dilbert as the title character.

New corporate culture

Influenced by corporate culture

Corporate culture that drives innovation

Corporate culture is dead

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Executives spend a lot of time worrying about their companies’ products and prices, but they don’t spend nearly enough time worrying about corporate character.

A lot of them don’t believe companies even have a character, and others don’t see what difference it could possibly make.

Correlation between employee investment and performance

But is there a direct correlation between employee investment and performance? As Prof. James L. Heskett wrote in his latest book The Culture Cycle, effective culture can account for 20-30 percent of the differential in corporate performance when compared with “culturally unremarkable” competitors.

Kotter and Heskett’s landmark study Corporate Culture and Performance documented results for 207 large U.S. companies in 22 different industries over an eleven-year period.

Kotter and Heskett reported that companies that managed their cultures well saw revenue increases of 682% versus 166% for the companies that did not manage their cultures well – stock price increases of 901% versus 74% – and net income increases of 756% versus 1%.

Corporate culture is an incredibly powerful factor

Corporate culture is an incredibly powerful factor in a company’s long-term success. No matter how good your strategy is, when it comes down to it, people always make the difference. As Peter Drucker so wisely stated, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

Top 4 corporate culture infographics

Culture is eating what it kills – such as strategy, change management, innovation, operational efficiency, lean process and even including vision and mission.

How to cultivate organisational culture?

Corporate culture is a hard thing to get right. It’s a moving target that means something different to everyone.

It grows and evolves over time and is the result of action and reaction. It is the lingering effect of every interaction. How to cultivate organisational culture?

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Culture and engagement is the most important issue companies face around the world

In an era of heightened corporate transparency, greater workforce mobility and severe skills shortages, culture, engagement and retention have emerged as top issues for business leaders.

According to Deloitte’s 2015 Global Human Capital Trends survey, employee engagement and culture issues exploded onto the scene, rising to become the no. 1 challenge companies face around the world:

87 percent of organizations cite culture and engagement as one of their top challenges, and 50 percent call the problem “very important.”

“Softer” areas such as culture and engagement, leadership and development have become urgent priorities.

Titanic sank after colliding with an iceberg

Organizational culture is like an iceberg – so let’s hope that companies don’t collide with an iceberg as Titanic did.

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The proper management of corporate culture requires understanding about what drives it, and, even more important, which drivers are most influential.

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The silent business killer that strikes without warning

It’s out there right now. Hiding where companies least expect to find it. It is the silent business killer that strikes without warning and can bring even the biggest and the brightest companies to their knees. What is this hidden terror? Complacency.

Don’t think it can happen? It does, every day. It happens to small businesses. It happens to the big and mighty.

Avoiding complacency is essential to any business’s long-term longevity. Avoid complacently always! So better be mindful of things below the organization’s surface!

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Corporate culture will need to be both resilient and agile

Organizations that keep a careful eye on what’s changing their business environment and that can then quickly respond to those changes will have cultures that put them at a competitive advantage.

At the same time, certain features of corporate cultures will need to be dependable, such as a commitment to key values. This will allow employees to maintain a sense of equanimity and stability amid turbulence, and it will allow the organization to stay resilient even when it takes a psychological or financial hit in the marketplace. There will likely be solid metrics that gauge both the agility and resilience of organizations.

The ability to cultivate and maintain healthy corporate cultures will become a standard component of leadership development programs. At the same time, someone or some team will be made responsible for tracking the “state of the culture.”

Ultimately, this responsibility for for developing, maintaining, or “fixing” a culture will probably be most effectively executed if it is the duty of some larger group, such as a cross-functional team of executives.

Every organization has a culture

Virtually every organization has a culture, whether or not leadership wishes to admit the fact. So don’t leave it unattended! – corporate culture are likely to become even more critical in the future!

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Changing organizational culture is daunting

Each year, companies invest millions in growth strategies such as mergers and acquisitions, global expansion and new market penetration. Yet only a fraction see the results they hoped for.

Successful execution of a growth strategy depends heavily on having a culture that drives high performance. Changing the culture, however, is daunting for any organization. Culture is deeply embedded in values, assumptions, behaviors, and attitudes.

Culture transformation should preserve what makes a company strong, while removing barriers to change

The goal of culture transformation is to preserve those aspects of the culture that made a company strong and at the same time to alter any habits that are impeding strategic change.

To align its culture with its business strategy, an organization must have a clear understanding of:

• The current culture and how it supports or hinders strategy execution – What should stay? What should go?
• The type of culture that will drive its specific strategy – What is missing?
• The differences between the two
• The levers that will have a powerful impact on culture transformation (potential accelerators)
• Foreseeable challenges that could derail efforts

Top 4 corporate culture infographics

Alignment between culture and a new strategy takes time

Finding the perfect alignment between culture and a new strategy takes time. Organizations should identify the culture changes that will have the greatest impact and concentrate energy and resources on those two or three initiatives. It still may take 12 to 24 months to alter deeply ingrained behaviors and perceptions,but a focused approach helps the changes stick.

But with persistence and a comprehensive understanding of what levers can steer the culture, organizations can move themselves toward that desired state.

Don’t claim victory too soon!

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Conflicting cultures is one of the bigger challenges of Mergers & Acquisitions

When it comes to Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), most due diligence focuses only on the financials. Later, management is usually shocked to find the degree of differences that exists between their two, soon to be merged, organizations. Conflicting cultures is one of the bigger challenges of M&A.

It’s surprising that so many companies still spend a large amount on legal due diligence, financial due diligence and ultimately the purchase price, and too often leave the most important asset in the deal – the organizational culture – to chance.

What is below the organizations surface

Cultural due diligence should be integrated into the process early on. It should consists of a cultural assessment that discover areas of similarity and difference that will impact integration efforts and the achievement of strategic objectives.

Understand the cultural dynamics of the acquired organization: How do they operate? How do they develop their talent? How are they motivated to succeed? What’s their executive management decision-making style? etc. etc.

Culture as part of the due diligence process

Between 55 and 77 percent of all mergers fail – (Proceeding Alliances, Mergers, and Acquisitions, Acta Press) – to deliver on the financial promise announced when the merger was initiated, and they fail for the same two basic reasons:

• Failure to assess the potential impact of attempting to merge and integrate the cultures of the companies involved
• Failure to plan for systemic, systematic and efficient integration of those cultures.

So better include culture as part of the due diligence process and be prepared to address the in-congruences between business units with action.

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Organizational cultural due diligence — http://www.torbenrick.eu/t/r/iol

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Organizational cultural due diligence

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The dark side of business

A common pitfall for many successful organizations is the rise of complacency. Complacency attempts to ride the good feeling of having succeeded during highly competitive or any type of crisis that potentially threatens the existence of the organization

Those businesses and organizations which wait until they are forced to change by the market will not see the same success as companies which evolve early and work the kinks out.

Need proof?

The silent business killer

Look no further than Kodak. The camera and film company was a titan in their industry, holding a huge share of the market from its founding in the mid 1880’s. Without much competition and a huge consumer base, Kodak enjoyed massive success until it hit a bump in the road.

In 1975, a Kodak engineer invented the first digital camera, and saw it promptly tucked away in a closet somewhere, never to see the light of day. Kodak saw digital photos as the enemy, encroaching on the infrastructure and established place in the market that Kodak had spent so long working to develop. Rather than cannibalize sales of film and traditional cameras in the short-term, Kodak opted to remain set in their ways, offering consumers the same product that they had for years, and by the late 1990’s, when they realized their mistake, it was too late.

Or look at Research in Motion (“RIM”), the maker of the once iconic BlackBerry.

A scant 10 years ago they were merely a scrappy upstart with a truly innovative idea: let’s give people the ability to get their email messages on the go. Within a few years they were no longer the scrappy upstart but the market leader.

While RIM was focused on simply staying the course with their email push technology a little company named Apple was focused on delivering an entirely new kind of product. A multimedia and technological wonder known as the iPhone that could deliver your emails just like the BlackBerry but was cooler, hipper, more stylish. People wanted one and wanted to be seen with one. Then, as BlackBerry raced to catch up with the iPhone they were blindsided by the Android operating system.

From scrappy upstart to market leader to the free fall they have experienced in the past 18 months, RIM has seen it all. If only they had seen it coming and had not been complacent when they were on top. If only ……….

Don’t fall victim to complacency – Always challenge the status quo

When complacency sets in, opportunities are missed, customer service diminishes, quality drops and the company’s performance suffers.

Always challenge the status quo. Ask questions such as, “What happens when market demands shift? How will we respond if the business starts to lose customers? Why are we doing it this way?” Too many organizations adopt an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” attitude – with serious long-term consequences. Nothing ever stays the same so no matter how good it seems today, it’ll change.

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The dark side of business — http://www.torbenrick.eu/t/r/aqq

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The dark side of business

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Acquisition management and organizational culture clashes

Various studies provide compulsive evidence of the damage that organizational culture clashes does to shareholder value post an acquisition.

A study by KPMG found that 83% of international mergers failed to deliver on their promise of shareholder value. A Moeller and Schlingemann study showed similar results: of 4430 international acquisitions by US companies, the majority were characterized by significant under performance.

The overwhelming factor in the failure of acquisitions is that of organizational culture clashes, punctuated by a lack of clear strategic direction to manage this roadblock.

It has to be managed

This organizational culture clashes cannot simply be swept under the carpet or ignored. It has to be managed! But not without a serious investment of time and money.

Its potential disruptiveness can be minimized. When properly managed, cultural clash can result in a post-merger organization that can better achieve strategic and financial objectives than either partner could do on their own.

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Effective transfer of information and capabilities between the integrating partners and thus the use of synergies will only be successful if both partners show some understanding and respect of each other ́s organizational structures, processes, corporate culture and emotions.

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The impact of organizational culture clashes — http://www.torbenrick.eu/t/r/hsq

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The impact of organizational culture clashes