6/26/2014
Shaping and Sustaining Your Unique Culture
Nathan Salsbery, CPA, CFE, CGMA
CapinCrouse LLP
Shaping and Sustaining Your Unique Culture
Every organization has a unique culture.
Is your organizational culture intentional or accidental?
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6/26/2014
Shaping and Sustaining Your Unique Culture
Organizations that intentionally shape their culture around core values and sustain it through deliberate best practices position themselves for long term success.
3 Key Ingredients for shaping and sustaining your unique culture (Aristotle’s Appeals):
1. Cultural Ethos
2. Cultural Pathos
3. Cultural Logos
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Cultural Ethos: Setting the right tone at the top
• Ethos – the character of your organization • Establishing and maintaining credibility through character and competence
• Living out organizational vision, mission, and values
Cultural Ethos: Setting the right tone at the top
• Two components of trust:
– Character – Competence
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Cultural Ethos: Setting the right tone at the top
• The 1st Component of Trust ‐ Character
“Integrity is not so much a virtue itself as a complex of virtues, the virtues working together to form a coherent character, an identifiable and trustworthy person.”
Robert C. Solomon, Ethics and Excellence: Cooperation and Integrity in Business (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 168.
Cultural Ethos: Setting the right tone at the top
• The 2nd Component of Trust ‐ Competence
– An honest but incompetent team member will not earn or maintain the trust of other team members
– Unclear performance standards or lack of accountability to performance standards leads to loss of credibility
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Cultural Ethos: Setting the right tone at the top
• Does your organization have clearly defined vision, mission and values?
• Does your leadership team live them out?
Cultural Pathos: Sharing Your Unique Story
• Pathos – the emotional appeal of your organization
• Using storytelling to celebrate your organization’s unique history
• Engaging your stakeholders now and in the future
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Cultural Pathos: Sharing Your Unique Story
• What is the unique story of your organization?
– Founder
– Legacy clients/members
– What need was your organization responding to?
• Who are the storytellers in your organization?
Cultural Pathos: Sharing Your Unique Story
• Have you preserved those stories to engage your stakeholders now and into the future?
– Book/Brochure
– Videos/Photos
– Website
– Orientation/Training
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Cultural Logos: Speaking the Same Language
• Logos – the language of your organization
• Increasing organizational effectiveness
• Decreasing unnecessary drama among team members
Cultural Logos: Speaking the Same Language
• The universal challenge for every organization
– Effective COMMUNICATION
• To increase organizational effectiveness:
– Define your terms
– Be intentionally redundant
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Cultural Logos: Speaking the Same Language
• To decrease unnecessary drama among team members
– Evaluate the type/structure/frequency of meetings
– Evaluate the participants of meetings
– Evaluate the content of meetings
Cultural Logos: Speaking the Same Language
• To decrease unnecessary drama among team members
– Increase necessary drama among team members (healthy conflict)
– Start “true rumors” Patrick Lencioni, The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business (San Francisco: Jossey‐Bass, 2012)
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Review….
3 Key Ingredients for shaping and sustaining your unique culture (Aristotle’s Appeals):
1. Cultural Ethos – Setting the right tone at the top
2. Cultural Pathos – Sharing your unique story
3. Cultural Logos – Speaking the same language
Shaping and Sustaining Your Unique Culture
Nathan Salsbery, CPA, CFE, CGMA
CapinCrouse LLP
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