Four reasons why culture matters
In football or business, culture is the invisible force shaping behaviour, decision-making, and overall performance. It’s the organisation’s shared values, beliefs, and attitudes. Culture is not just about having a pleasant work environment; it is critical to a business or football club’s long-term success and sustainability.
I played for six clubs during my career, and it wasn’t a coincidence that success or outperformance was achieved when the culture was at its strongest – and the opposite was also true!
1: Culture correlates with performance
For data geeks, based on the research of over 1,000 organisations encompassing more than three million individuals, those with top-quartile cultures (as measured by McKinsey & Co.’s Organizational Health Index) post a return to shareholders 60% higher than the median company and 200 % higher than those in the bottom quartile. So, culture matters a lot!
2: Culture is inherently challenging to copy
The quickening pace of innovation in Sports and Business means that tactics, products, and business models constantly face the threat of being replicated. In this environment, the ultimate competitive advantage is a healthy culture that automatically adapts to changing conditions to find new ways to succeed.
3: Healthy cultures enable organisations to adapt
In a world where the one constant is change, culture becomes even more critical because organisations with high-performing cultures thrive on change. The converse also holds: Unhealthy cultures do not respond well to change.
4: Unhealthy cultures lead to underperformance…or worse
Over time, not only do unhealthy cultures foster lacklustre performance, but they can be your undoing. Daily headlines attest that culture can bring corporate giants to their knees. Clubs used to playing in Europe suddenly embrace midtable mediocrity or worse.
Do you have examples of businesses or teams with good and bad cultures?
Good: The great overachievers – Leicester City under Claudio Ranieri. Warning: culture is constant and always needs to be worked on….they were relegated 6 years later.
Bad: Uber in their early high growth years? Numerous scandals, along with several senior figures resigning, including the co-founder/CEO.
What’s yours?
#Culture #TeamWork #Leadership