When most people think of culture, they think of African headdresses, Italian food, Hungarian dances, and French art. When I think of culture, I think of business {and kombucha – anyone need a SCOBY?}. Let me explain.
Culture is the representation of who we are and what we value. Our values translate through expression in food, art, music, and traditions but more importantly, our values are translated through our expression of actions and words. What we say and what we do are direct representations of our values and therefore our culture.
In business, they say culture eats strategy for breakfast because culture is the make or break it ingredient. If a business’ culture is not representing its values than a business has nothing to stand on and is projected into chaos. Employees don’t know what is expected of them or aren’t held accountable for what’s expected of them which impacts the production and quality of work for everyone – indirectly translating to the customer and affecting sales.
“The biggest challenge was to restore a dying organization, which was losing money, to growth and profitability. The first steps were not: Cutting costs, developing new products and/or services, inventing clever new marketing concepts, or clever advertising! Instead, the first steps were: Rebuilding a culture where all employees were a family, striving for a “shared” success! The basis for this success turned out to be winning major races again.”
— Peter Schutz, Retired CEO of Porsche AG Worldwide
If you’re not a business owner or entrepreneur and have no interest in being a part of that world, what does business have to do with you? Everything. YOU are a business. Hang in here with me, this might get a little deep. The simplest example is that we all want companionship, just like businesses want money. As individuals, we are constantly in positions where we have to “sell” our personality to others in order for people to like us. People generally want to be around other people who are like them, share their same values and interests. In order to find the kind of people we want to surround ourselves with {customers}, we have to become the kind of people others want to surround themselves with {culture}. I say all of this to preface what I actually want to talk about which isn’t really business at all; it’s family.
I had a revelation in my life over the last month. As I work in the world of management and have had some recent exposure to business consulting, I kept thinking more and more about how much culture impacts a business. Why had it never occurred to me that family is just as much a business as we as individuals are? Families are the most organic type of organization. It only makes sense that some of the same business strategies would also be great strategies to implement in a family organization when both have the end goal of sustainability.
When you get married, you have a business partner for life. Just like a business needs a business plan, in order to successfully navigate life’s waters, you need a family plan. Your family plan should try to address any obstacle or issue you might face and how you’re going to overcome it. And even if you can’t predict every hurdle, your plan should include enough of the necessary tools that will help make jumping over it as easy as possible. The strongest foundation for this is by determining your culture. Your culture should ultimately answer the question, “what do we represent?”. {Note: your culture is not what you WANT to represent, it’s what you actually represent. The beauty is you have the power to change the answer.}
Understand Your Current Culture
As a family, make a list all of the positive and negative attributes of your family dynamic: you, your marriage, relationship with your children, and the way your family operates as a whole. Are you and your family busy, spontaneous, loving, impatient? Circle the attributes you want to carry with you and underline the ones that you want to work on and change.
Determine Your Ideal Culture
Make a list of all the ideal attributes you want your family’s culture to have. This should include but not be limited to the attributes you circled and possibly the opposite of the attributes you underlined from your previous list.
Implement Change
From your list of ideal attributes, pick the top 5 that best fit what you want to represent. These will become your “family values”. For example, our family chose love {kindness was a close runner-up, but we figured since “love is patient, love is kind…” we could sandwich it under love}, integrity, respect, responsibility, and intentionality. The object for implementing change is based on everyone running their words and actions through your family’s values filter. If it doesn’t fall in line with your family’s values than it doesn’t have a place in your family’s culture and shouldn’t be said or acted on.
I’m convinced that you will see a positive change in your family’s dynamics should you implement this strategy in your family plan. And, for any mompreneur reading, in case you’re wondering, this strategy can also be implemented in your business.
Share with me your thoughts! What strategies do you implement in your family plan to help it run smoothly? Do you have a family plan? What are your family’s values? Drop a comment below.
