Key Question
How does company culture influence a business’s ability to engage and interact with its key stakeholders? Although 91% of U.S. managers say candidate’s alignment with company culture is equal to or more important than skills and experience, and 88% of employees believe a strong company culture is key to business success, these figures are only the tip of the iceberg when evaluating the true importance and relevance of company culture in today’s industries.
Company culture is developed and fostered through shared values, operational attributes, and organizational characteristics. These components are crucial for unilaterally reflecting the attitudes and behaviors of a company and its employees for consistency within internal and external stakeholder relationships. The culture of a company can be a key indicator of an organization’s ability to communicate its vision, values, objectives, and procedures to its employees, clients, and business partners.
Building Blocks
As we build our corporate culture here at Orchestral.ai, I often refer to the increasing industry support for, and recognition of, company culture over traditional indicators of business performance. Glassdoor’s “Culture Over Cash” emphasizes how employees will stay with an organization because of the positive culture within the organization versus taking a better paying job. MIT’s Sloan School of Management study on the “Big Nine Cultural Values” expands upon the nine core company values:
Agility
Collaboration
Customer
Diversity
Execution
Innovation
Integrity
Performance
Respect
Implicitly or explicitly these cultural values are integrated into the business practices of key industry leaders like Amazon, Goldman Sachs, and Walmart.
Our Approach
What does company culture look like here at Orchestral.ai? One of the key pillars that supports our organizational culture is our maniacal focus on the success of our clients. Everyone in our organization is in the business of serving our clients, motivated by the goal to anticipate the needs of our clients. Although we are unable to think of everything under the sun that pertains to our clients, we believe it is fundamentally important to be active listeners and ask for constructive criticism. How can we improve? What can we do better? Our goal is to strive each and every day towards a positive impact over time through regular incremental changes to our methods and procedures.
As proponents of open and honest communication, we encourage our team members to speak up in order to create an element of self-reflection in our culture. This includes examining how we want to empower our employees to make a difference in how we operate internally and externally. An example of this can be seen in the recently popularized way of providing constructive feedback on organizational practices called “Start, Stop, Continue.” Encouraging our employees to adopt a thoughtful and positive approach to open and honest communications goes far beyond asking what works and what does not work. In a similar way, we work with our clients and partners to elicit feedback regarding our products and our organization as a whole in a manner beneficial to all of our stakeholders.
Takeaway
As an organization, we are always thinking about how we can apply technology to make life easier, whether it be through greater efficiency or reduced costs. We are in the business of using artificial intelligence to automate and orchestrate complex tasks in order to add substantial value to our clients’ business operations through cost reductions and effectiveness. The willingness to find better ways to conduct business is an element already baked into our corporate DNA.
A company’s culture allows for everyone to be on the same sheet of music. It allows for focus and increases the odds of successful outcomes. When the orchestra strikes up the music, it is important that every instrument is tuned and the members are ready to play their assigned notes with tonal clarity and exquisite timing.
Yes, culture matters.
Marshall Bartoszek, Founder & Chief Value Officer
Learn more at: https://orchestral.ai