Mar 18, 2010

How to Create a Company Philosophy

 

How to Create a Company Philosophy: School New Hires on Company History

Even if you ask some pointed or provocative questions in the interview and get the answers you're looking for, your newest recruit isn't going to be integrated into the company culture on day one. Zappos has a four-week course for new hires in which they learn about the company philosophy and history. At the end, they are offered $2,000 to quit, and clearly many decide to stay.

You don't necessarily need to spell out how the company ethos affects daily job responsibilities. Let new employees breathe in the culture and apply it creatively to their tasks and their attitude towards their work. Of course providing examples can help make nebulous and heady ideals seem much more concrete and give employees something to emulate. Of course there's any number of ways to introduce new hires to company history, and you don't want to get too didactic.

Last year, New Belgium Brewing sold over half a million barrels of beer, which makes it all the more remarkable that CEO Kim Jordan doesn't have any employees. Okay, she has employees, 345 of them to be precise, but she refers to them as co-workers. It seems like a minute distinction but it's part of New Belgium's larger culture of involving all its members in the decision making process.

New hires get introduced to the company's history, and to it's ecological commitment, on a bike ride that passes the three locations the brewery has held in its 20 year of existence. "I think one of my roles as a leader here is to keep the story of who we are--our creation story as well as our evolution--alive and vivid and active," Jordan says.

Dig Deeper: Nolan Bushnell on Games and Parties in Company Culture

How to Create a Company Philosophy: Fixing a Broken Company Culture

As a company grows, it's possible for the leadership or the employees to lose sight of the founding values. This can lead, among other things, to ethical lapses. When companies come to Priest "a third come to us because the blade of the guillotine is at their neck," he says.

Evaluating the problem is easy. Priest and his colleagues use a focus group method to interview employees, clients, and suppliers and they readily apprehend what the company's strengths and weaknesses are. Then comes the hard part: "holding the mirror up to the leadership," Priest says. Management can often become dissociated from the way people on lower tiers of the corporate ladder experience daily life at the company. Often, though, when Priest presents them with the evidence they see the need for serious change.

Dig Deeper: Yvon Chouinard, Founder of Patagonia, on Corporate Culture

Resources:
 
* The Ethical Leadership Group and consulting firms like it serve companies who have gone astray from their philosophies and are looking to get back on track ethically.

* The RBL Group and firms like it provide advice on human resources, leadership, and organization and so might be more helpful in scaling your company culture as you grow.

* Many companies including New Belgium Brewery and Zappos have lists of their core values on their websites. These can serve as models for business owners looking to clarify their own aims.
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