“Want to improve your bottom line along with your sales growth and shareholder value? Pay attention the culture within your organization.”

“What is the magic? (It is) the culture that guides our business every day and is owned by the operations people at all levels throughout our organization.”

-The Toyota Culture - The Heart & Soul of the Toyota Way
By Jeffery K. Liker and Michael Hoseus quoting Pete Gritton

The thing that I have learned about IBM is that culture is everything

Louise V. Gerstner, Jr. - Former CEO of IBM

“..the so called soft stuff is hard, measurable, and impacts everything else in relationships, organizations, markets, and societies. Financial success comes from success in the marketplace, and success in the marketplace comes from success in the workplace.”

Harvard Business Review published an analysis of culture at the Mayo Clinic. Did working on culture make a difference? “Exceptionally positive word of mouth and abiding customer loyalty, which have allowed Mayo Clinic to build what is arguably the most powerful brand in health care—with very little advertising—in an industry where few institutions have any brand recognition beyond their local markets. …In just about any organization, the clues emitted by people and things tell a story to customers or potential customers. The question for managers is whether the clues tell the intended story.”

“Trust is critical in a company that must have world class innovation and world class execution to grow substantially. Innovation and execution are team sports. They demand high levels of collaboration. Collaboration requires trust… our experience suggests that many of the failures of innovation are social failures. … Often, the root cause is poor social interaction; the right people simply don’t engage in productive dialogue frequently enough.”

Each year Fortune publishes its much-anticipated edition on "The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America." How do they make their selections? With an employee survey and a culture audit. Similarly, they select winners for their annual list, “World’s Most Admired Companies” with criteria that weighs culture heavily.

“The key here is to create an environment where people feel like they’re making a difference, where they can have fun, where they are free to make decision beyond the boundaries of a typical company. A lot of this comes from the culture that we’ve created. The final performance would be the bottom line. If you were to look at the company the year before I came here — our (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) were approximately $50 million. Last year, it was $130 million. We went from $50 (million) to $130 (million) in five years [on revenue of about $870 million], and in the middle of all that, sold the company for over 100 percent improvement in value. Being selected as a Fortune 100 company, for me, is the most important report card that I could get, because my No. 1 job is to create an environment where people can grow and develop. What I’m trying to do at Simmons is leave a legacy that goes way beyond me, way beyond my successor and way beyond my successor’s successor to say that we have created a culture here built on a great legacy that, at the end of the day, is about caring for each other, caring for our customers and caring for the environment.”

“The most important asset in every company is the esprit de corps: the motivation and passion of each employee ... and ... their willingness to collaborate together on whatever strategic projects are critical for growth.”

“The most important thing for us is the depth of our culture. We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen. And the entire company culture is based around (this): If we are treated with respect and dignity and there is pride and joy in the workplace, the automatic human reaction is that we will turn around and make magic for the customers.”

"Business isn't some disembodied bloodless enterprise. Profit is fine -- a sign that the customer honors the value of what we do. But "enterprise" (a lovely word ) is about heart. About beauty. It's about art. About people throwing themselves on the line. It's about passion and the selfless pursuit of an ideal."

“The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture.” “If you do not manage culture, it manages you, and you may not even be aware of the extent to which this is happening.”

“Corporate cultures that inhibit strong long-term financial performance are not rare; they develop easily, even in firms that are full of reasonable and intelligent people.”

"...for a relative handful of world-class performers, however, the picture looks different. These companies inspire loyalty from employees, who want to stay and be part of a team. They generate commitment to go the extra mile, to do the right thing rather than just the easy thing. At these companies, people not only know what they should do, they know why they should do it... How do these standouts ensure that everyone acts in the best interests of the company, even when no one is watching? The answer: culture."