Cultures

There are essentially four main operating components influencing your business today: the internal culture, the external culture, the market culture and the very distinct super culture.

The culture of any company is a complex entity existing within and outside of your brick and mortar or digital landscape dynamics. It is as much they way you perceive yourself, as it it is the way you perceive others in cooperation with yourself. It is as much about you thinking about the world as it is the world thinking about you.

It is a sense of character that is passed down from the very top of the company to the most fundamental personality in your company. Culture isn't any one thing, it is a combination and an amalgamation of many things - some very human by nature and some in the design and execution of the way you do business.

Think of the culture of your company as a living organism that evolves with the company's growth, and grows in the way it best perceives - on whatever level that perception takes place- how that organism identifies it must grow in order to live and to thrive.  In any living process where thought and consequence are as important to survival as available area and resources are to the most elemental organisms on the planet; the company culture takes on a uniquely significant role. Here instead of some basic cell growth and division, we witness how the founder(s) replicates his or her characteristics throughout the growth of that company. 

This determination and imposition of behavior on others to evoke our will is as basic to human nature as anything else we do - it 's manifest destiny-  whether we do this for the good (Mother Theresa) or the for evil (Hitler). The stronger the will of that organism to impose it's perceived values and the more important that value is to the other organisms that attach themselves to this cause, the more directly these characteristics define a company. History is replete with these examples. Just because we do this on a much smaller scale, doesn't mean in some ways it doesn't have the same impact. How does your boss perceive quality? Pricing? Integrity? How does your Founder treat subordinate employees? Does he(she) hire to compliment their egos or to offset their weaknesses? 

When all is said and done, the people who believe that the end result of how they treat others is just as important as how many widgets they sell offer and how good their widgets look will be the people and the companies that we remember and support. It starts from the top down and then in a mad market of individuals, policies, competitors, pricing and selection - the companies with character as their culture stand out.

The Internal Culture is the natural evolution in the behavior people create and modify as they assimilate into environmental changes. It is the manifest evidence of people growing individually yet as a group. It’s about how they relate to one another - how they get along with management and how they talk about your company to people outside your doors. It’s about cliques, emails, phone calls, lunches, break room conversations and all the elements that make a culture a separate, living and thriving entity. It is the singular yet collective manner in which this body of people represents themselves to you, your managers and ultimately to the Market Culture (the people who buy your products and services).

The External Culture is made up of the people (sales, management, technicians, phone support, etc.) who represent your company with their own unique personalities. They sell and support your products and services directly to the Market Culture - hopefully with the same sort of enthusiasm and energy which originally built and defined your company.

The Market Culture is the most complex culture outside the Super Culture. Like all cultures, each in some way affects the other, but in the case of the Market Culture, its affect drives your business. It is the combination of your client’s employees working with your employees - interfacing to create their own distinct community. It is the market share exerting its influence on your company with the law of supply and demand. It is your buyers reacting to pressures from competition, market changes and new economic perspectives. It is the nature of business evolution as it turns, morphs and opens new doors of opportunities. It is the source of energy to inspire The Super Culture.

The Super Culture is where the spirit and personality of your company reside. It is the energy created from the results of all these influences converging in the hearts, minds and thoughts of employees, managers, salespeople, marketing people, clients and even competitors. From all these like and disparate components we learn the secrets that will inspire and impact your market. It is the juncture where the observational and quantitative values we’ve obtained from the Internal and External Cultures are processed to form the recommendations for adapting company structure and accelerating sales and marketing.

The Residual Impact is the anticipated but unidentified benefits that will result from our combined strategies and programs.

To learn more about how the dynamics of your company are defining and either inhibiting or increasing your growth, email Frank Bosson at frankb@thebossongroup.com for a frank discussion on how values are more important today than ever before, both in our lives and in our businesses. 

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