Culture and the 3 Satisfactions

This month, we’re going to look at organizational culture and three areas in which that culture can create satisfaction, leading to positive change. That change can be defined as financial growth, an increased presence in the marketplace, or even long-term stability. However, make no mistake: positive change must be intentional.

Positive change begins at the core of a business. It starts with your business’ culture, and includes its vision, mission, purpose, and core values. It is evidenced by procedural, relational, and substantive satisfaction.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll zoom in on those satisfactions. For now, let’s take a look together at this idea of culture in your business.

What is your business’ culture?

The BusinessLife definition of culture is as follows:

“Culture is made up of the basic principles and ideas which support a healthy and dynamic organization.”

Essentially, culture is the answer to the question, “How do we do things around here?” It’s comprised of four key components: vision, mission, purpose and core values. Of those, core values are the biggest component of business culture. Today, we’ll spend time looking at core values and their role in company culture.

First, however, let’s talk about vision. Your business’ vision is made up primarily of how you as a company see yourselves growing. What will the business look like in six months? How about two years? Five years? Vision isn’t all there is to your goal, but it is a significant factor.

Mission is your business’ intended results. What will your business do or produce, and how does that impact the marketplace and the world?

Purpose has to do with the “why” of business. Why are you in business in the first place? What need does your business serve?

The lines between mission, vision, and purpose aren’t always distinct. All three are usually addressed in your business’ vision statement or mission statement.

Business culture as the living embodiment of core values

The issue of core values goes deeper than mission, vision, and purpose. Culture speaks to the guidelines, principles, and behaviors your business expects from its people; core values are the seeds from which your corporate culture grows.

Think of culture as a catalyst. In chemistry, a catalyst is “a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without itself undergoing any permanent chemical change.” In business, a catalyst is that aspect — and an asset — from which everything else flows.

The right business culture is a catalyst for growth that provides procedural, relational, and substantive satisfaction. It is a stimulus; a spark; an impetus for positive change. The wrong business culture becomes a catalyst for inefficient and ineffective processes, significant relational problems, and substantive decline for your business.

So, what are your business’ core values? The answer is highly individualized, but the principle is the same. Core values are the source of your business’ distinctiveness, and you must be willing to adhere to them at all costs, even in the tempting face of a short-term gain.

If you haven’t yet identified your business’ core values, it’s time to back up and get them set. They define your business culture. They are set in place to establish the development of your culture.

Business culture as a catalyst for satisfaction and success

A healthy business culture, based on the right core values, includes the quest for qualitative and continuous improvement. That culture encourages self-examination, as well as an openness to learning. It encourages the 3 satisfactions: procedural, relational, and substantive.

We’ll look more closely at the 3 satisfactions as the month goes on, but for now let’s look at the direct relationship between culture and the 3 satisfactions.

Culture creates trust between people in your business, or relational satisfaction. When you combine this with a trustworthy process, or procedural satisfaction, you create the possibility for substantive change in the business. This, in turn, helps to build a strong internal culture with employee satisfaction at all levels. In many ways, the right business culture creates a climate in which satisfaction leads back around to satisfaction.

To put it another way, “success breeds success.” This isn’t just speculation or theory, either. Psychologists tell us that people who experience a single initial success are far more likely to continue to experience success in the future. The same holds true for your business.

Your people as the center of your business culture

The people involved in your business will determine whether your core values are reflected in your day-to-day operations. Your culture will determine and be determined by:

How the people in your business view change
The willingness of your people to self-examine
The ability of your people to discuss your business culture
The level of agreement at which your people can arrive

In short, reaching the 3 satisfactions necessarily begins with your people. If you don’t have buy-in on your corporate culture, you’ll never make real progress.

Business culture and meeting mindsets

Last month, we talked about attending meetings, and the four types of mindsets people can bring to a meeting. The Prisoner sees meetings as a forced requirement, a distraction from the “real” work. The Vacationer sees meetings as play time, a chance to get away from the “real” work. The Critic sees meetings as an opportunity to display their knowledge and views, and choose to take away nothing.

Each of these mindsets can be symptoms of a culture that needs work. When you have the right culture in place, most members of the organization will attend as Developers: team members working together to build something great, each one lending their special set of skills and ideas.