I was speaking recently with the CEO of a successful, growing e-commerce services company. The subject was organizational culture, and how to consciously create it. Coincidentally, another call a day later with the CFO of a 2,000 person biotech company on the East Coast was about the exact same thing.
It seems that the attention being paid to the concept of “culture” in a business has never been higher, since the point where it was introduced by the founder of modern management theory, Peter Drucker, in 2006. Now, each day a new service firm is created to support what appears to be a growing market for guidance in building a desired culture.
It’s always been a critical element of why some organizations endure and others don’t. The form of the topic, its scope and perspective, its terminology have changed, however. Now, “culture” has come to be the most prominent word to describe the collection of behaviors that are considered required, or at least promoted, throughout an organization, by those who hold the most authority and thus potential influence on the lives of others in the organization.
