Upstanding. Frank A. Calderoni
and
Up to 30 percent greater customer satisfaction levels.7
This is all good news for businesses with great cultures, but there's a hitch. According to a 2018 PwC survey of more than 2,000 people in 50 countries, although company leaders tend to think their companies have great cultures, their employees don't necessarily agree. While 63 percent of C-suite and board members surveyed reported that their organizations have strong cultures, only 41 percent of employees responded that this is the case. In addition, 80 percent of respondents said that in order to succeed, grow, and retain the best people, their organization's culture needs to evolve within the next five years. Compare this to just 51 percent of respondents in 2013 who said that their organization's culture needs to evolve.8
As the Aon Hewitt/QCBV study demonstrates, a corporate culture that is lacking correlates to lower levels of employee engagement, productivity, and business results, along with higher levels of turnover and absenteeism. However, it gets even worse. Gallup also found that 51 percent of employees surveyed are actively looking for a new job or watching for openings at any given time—in many cases because they are convinced that “the grass is greener” in a different organization.9 Unfortunately, this group of people may very well include your best employees—some of whom may leave before they realize their full potential in your organization.
In 2019, job and recruiting site Glassdoor published the results of its latest Mission and Culture Survey. This survey asked a simple question: What makes employees around the world satisfied at work? According to the results of the survey, the top three drivers of employee satisfaction are:
Culture and values;
Quality of senior leadership; and
Career opportunities.10
The Glassdoor survey also revealed that:
Well over half (56 percent) of employees and job seekers say company culture is more important than salary when it comes to job satisfaction.
Almost 73 percent of adults surveyed would not apply to a company unless its values align with their own personal values.
Nearly 4 in 5 people would consider a company's mission (79 percent) and culture (77 percent) before applying for a job there.
Almost 2 in 3 employees (65 percent) say company culture is one of the main reasons for staying at a job.
65 percent of U.S. Millennials are likely to place culture above salary, which is higher than any other age demographic surveyed.11
Clearly, culture matters and has a tremendous impact on who joins and stays at your organization—and ultimately, on your ability to execute strategies required to achieve the goals you set for your organization.
When I became CEO of Anaplan in 2017, I could see the culture needed an overhaul. Even though our product was exceptional, and we were on to something that had enormous potential, that was not enough to make the company successful long-term. One thing I noticed early on was the company was lacking in diversity and inclusion—in fact, internally the nickname “Manaplan” was often invoked because upper management of the company was mostly men, and women were not well represented across functions.
We needed to make some changes quickly to transform Anaplan's operations and culture. I will get into the details of that transformation later in this book. But for those of you who are trying to understand your culture, I recommend asking these questions: How does your culture evolve amid ever-changing business, political, social, economic, and customer dynamics? How does your culture remain clear, consistent, and powerful amid hypergrowth? How does your culture persist when people are dispersed globally, expect more from work, and work remotely?
Company Culture Is Distinct from Company Character
Company culture is the system of beliefs, values, goals, behaviors, and the way employees feel working in the organization—from leadership style, decision-making norms, customer experience, and company policies—officially and unofficially. Essentially, it's the personality of the organization. Culture evolves over time, often adjusts with leadership change, and must be actively managed.
Company character is the integrity, respect, and fortitude residing at the core of your culture. It is the basis of trust and emotional connection people have with your organization—measured by the distance between what you say and what you do. Company character is the timeless alignment of your values (your stated intentions), your reputation (what you're known for), and your actions. It is earned as much as it is defined.
The New Relevance of Character
What we know as someone's character anchors the relationships we build with people around us—our boss, the people who work for and with us, our customers, our vendors, our investors, the communities in which we do business, and the world at large. Positive business reputations rely on leaders and cultures with upstanding character—behavior that demonstrates values people can rely on and build trust in. From what I have learned, character is intrinsic and enduring—like a boulder that weathers a hurricane with no visible stress or damage—and the origins of the word reflect this.
Character found its way into our language from the ancient Greek word charassein, which means “to engrave,” as you would engrave a letter, number, or other character onto a surface such as clay, wood, or metal using a chisel. As the pioneering psychoanalyst Dr. Richard Sterba pointed out, this original meaning has since been broadened to humans. Says Sterba:
Character designates the features of personality which are more or less indelibly engraved upon it, features which of course express themselves in actions and reactions, features that are “characteristic” of the individual, features by which one ego structure can be differentiated from others.12
I believe that, just as a great culture creates competitive advantage, so too does defining and nurturing an upstanding company character. Companies with upstanding character embrace and embody the virtues of empathy, courage, authenticity, honesty, integrity, respect, and more. All of those attributes combine to create positive interactions and relationships that are then rewarded with loyalty, engagement, and goodwill. People make decisions on what to buy, where to work, whom to partner with, and whom to affiliate with based on a company's values and on the character (or lack of it) displayed by its people. Do you stand for something? Is your focus on making the world a better place or just on making money?
We all have our personal opinions on which companies stand out when it comes to character and living their values; there are a variety of annual surveys that rate the best places to work based on employee feedback. For example, rankings for the annual Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For are based on the results of a 60-question survey given to workers at companies with at least 1,000 U.S. employees. According to the Great Place to Work organization, which administers the survey, 85 percent of the evaluation is based on what employees report about their experiences of trust and reaching their full potential as part of their organization, no matter who they are or what they do. The remaining 15 percent includes an assessment of all employees' daily experiences of the company's values, people's ability to contribute new ideas, and the effectiveness of their leaders, to ensure they're consistently experienced.13
Here are the top three companies