Commitment to Culture Capital

Culture capital is the new frontier of competitive advantage, as is evident with the unforgivingly entropic environment businesses must operate in today. Culture capital refers to the collective values, beliefs, practices, and norms that characterise an organisation. It is the invisible glue that holds an organisation together, defining its identity and influencing how its members interact and make decisions. This can be a powerful asset, shaping a company’s brand, attracting and retaining talent, and driving sustainable innovation and growth.

Heavily emphasised in a recent Balanced Scorecard Institute whitepaper, culture capital is not just about creating a pleasant or engaging workplace atmosphere. It is about harnessing the collective intelligence and creativity of an organisation’s members and directing it towards the achievement of strategic goals. In this sense, culture capital is intrinsically linked to strategy management, defining an organisation’s direction and making decisions on resource allocation to pursue this direction.

Culture capital and strategy management are two sides of the same coin. On one hand, the culture of an organisation can enable or hinder its strategy management efforts. On the other, effective strategy management can enhance an organisation’s culture capital by creating a clear sense of direction, fostering engagement and innovation, and promoting a positive and productive work environment.

Cultural Entropy

In the context of organisational culture, cultural entropy can be seen as the degree of dysfunction or inefficiency within the organisation’s cultural system. This can manifest in various ways, such as internal conflicts, lack of trust, poor communication, and resistance to change.

Barrett’s The Values-Driven Organisation found that the cultural entropy of an organisation reflects the personal entropy—the personal mastery and consciousness present—in leaders and the institutional legacy of past leaders. Even in large organisations with mature strategy management, cultural efficiency and mission alignment can diverge paths when top-performing leaders who exhibit ill-fittingly high degrees of ownership abandon subsidiary or contrarian beliefs from team members.

When the centre (leader) no longer supports the periphery (team members), the periphery will depend on its own resources. As a result, multiple smaller centres will form. These new centres will eventually learn to function with more autonomy, separate from the original centre’s beliefs and values.

High levels of cultural entropy can disrupt internal cohesion and impede the ability to respond effectively to changing circumstances. It can also drain the organisation’s energy and resources, leaving it with unmet or misguided KPIs.

Change Management & Maturity

An organisation’s maturity can be distinguished through the extent to which values are communicated and practiced at all levels through thoughtful and consistent applications of change management. Rather than implementing mere formalities or measures to punish underperformers, their standards and methods are informed and evaluated by a bidirectional feed of planning and reactionary responses.

Thus, values will need to be adaptive. Organisations will need to regularly review and update their values to ensure they remain relevant to their strategic objectives and responsive to environmental changes.

For a culture change to be successful, it requires a deep understanding of the organisation’s dynamics and a clear vision of the desired future. This involves creating a compelling case for change, meaningful KPIs, engaging all members of the organisation, and providing ongoing support and reinforcement to ensure the new cultural patterns take root.

Transformative Case Studies

IBM’s overhaul into a leading technology company provides a powerful example of how culture capital can drive organisational transformation. In the early 1990s, IBM had suffered losses, laying off more than half of their 400,000 employees. However, they embarked on a major culture change initiative with a 6-month top-to-bottom management organisation review that helped to turn the company around.

One of the key elements of this initiative was a clear articulation of IBM’s core values. These values, which included dedication to client success, innovation that matters, and trust and personal responsibility, helped to unify the organisation and guide its actions.

IBM also implemented a series of initiatives to embed these values into the organisation’s culture and practices. These included a company-wide debate-discussion called ValuesJam that ran for three days, value statement retooling that aimed to prune the tech giant’s complacency and arrogance, and a values-based leadership development programme.

More recently, Patagonia has also become the standard for commitment to environmental sustainability that has not only shaped its culture but also driven its business strategy. Their dedication to integrity has attracted top talent, allowing their leveraged culture capital to take purposeful charge of financial performance.

Conclusively, culture is a consequential asset that can drive organisational transformation and enhance strategy management maturity. By understanding and managing it effectively, organisations can navigate the complexities of today’s business environment and achieve their strategic objectives.

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