I consider myself to be a student of “culture building.”  And I whole heartedly believe that culture has a direct impact on business performance.  It was a lesson I learned as a young PR pup, learning the ropes with my first big client, Continental Airlines – whose efforts to change their culture saved the airline and resulted in a business school case study kind of turnaround. 

Since then, I’ve observed, learned and absorbed every client’s approach to culture – and it is no surprise that the annual Fortune Best Places to Work leaders all talk about the role of culture in enabling their businesses to be successful. 

Building a performance-driving culture isn’t rocket science.  Most of the rules of the road come from simple lessons we all learned from our grandparents:

1. Treat people with respect.  Google’s Larry Page said it perfectly:  “When you treat people with respect, they tend to return the favor.”   Respect isn’t just about talking to them nicely – it is about trusting them to have some control over their work – whether that is their schedule, their assignments, and management of priorities.  Respecting them enough to share the big picture strategy.  And yes, work-life balance counts too.  Page says you need to treat employees like family – you probably need to treat them better than family.
2. Treat people as individuals.  Employees are not a flock of sheep.  We’ve developed super sophisticated ways to market products to micro-targeted groups of customers…recognizing the trend in individualization applies to the internal customer too and can be a real differentiator. It’s also how companies like Wegman’s and companies you may never have heard about like Camden Property Trust break into the Top Ten.    Perhaps the most extreme examples of this philosophy are the 14 companies who have a “no layoffs” policy.  The interesting thing about them is that many of them are in businesses that are hardest hit by the recession and changes in public policy– retailers, travel companies, healthcare and even AFLAC.  So they aren’t businesses who grow in all cycles.
3. Communicate, communicate, communicate.  Repetition is the key to culture building.  Grandpa’s story about walking to school uphill both ways served a purpose.  When you are sick of talking about something, your team is just starting to hear it.  And when you are ready to choke yourself, they are starting to believe this is more than the “direction du jour.”  Stay the course.  Reinforce your message.  And most importantly….walk the talk.

cwinters Employee Engagement AFLAC, Continental Airlines, Culture Building, FOrtune, Google, Wegman's

The new season of Undercover Boss is about to begin, and each of the CEOs involved this season penned a piece for Fortune about what they learned. You may recall that when the show launched, my position was that great leaders don’t need a show to work shoulder to shoulder with their front line employees, and they don’t need to go undercover.

The pieces in Fortune underscore my position. The learnings and observations are exactly what you would expect from a forced, performance for TV based experience…this job is harder than I thought (as my 10-year old would say – DUH); these employees have great ideas (DUH again); I don’t have the proper training to be a line chef/NASCAR pit crew/lettuce harvester.

These sanitized experiences, and even more sanitized accounts don’t do much for creating a culture or for advancing leadership. But there were two nuggets of wisdom worth sharing:

• Drop in unannounced…anything where the CEO is expected (like a TV taping, for instance) is scrubbed, prepped and designed to put a best foot forward. Drop in unannounced, these meetings will be much more informative. (From the Chairman and CEO of Chiquita Brands International)

• You have to stick around long enough for the employees to relax and start to talk to you. And you have to do it often enough that it becomes an ongoing conversation. (From the CEO of Great Wolf Lodge Resorts)

My take on the article, and the season, in a nutshell.

cwinters Executive Visibility Chiquita, FOrtune, Great Wolf Lodge Resorts, Leadership, NASCAR, Undercover Boss

Fortune’s Most Admired Companies list is undoubtedly sparking renewed conversations by reputation managers about their place on the list. This list is often used as the single greatest test of efficacy of reputation programs. While the editorial team at Fortune certainly holds influence, they are quite transparent about the process, which emphasis the opinion of executives/peers, directors and analyst. Geoff Colvin’s column in the latest issue provides great support for my point of view that reputation begins and ends with employee engagement.

Employees at all levels are the universal touch-point for all of your constituencies – and often, your reputation is only as good (or not) as the experience your customers, shareholders, business partners, communities and influencers have with those employees. Reputation begins at home. Colvin’s column states it eloquently:

“It turns out that this year’s leaders — the industry champs that really did come through the recession on top, such as UPS, Disney, McDonald’s, and Marriott International — differ from the stragglers in at least one way: They actually believe what every company proclaims about people being their most valuable asset.”

The Hay Group’s survey methodology debunks a lot of myths for reputation management practitioners, and indicates that the ability to attract and retain talent is their number 1 indicator – above all of the other Building Blocks of Reputation such as quality of management, innovation, long term investment value and even quality of product services.

As we look at the list of influencers on the Fortune survey – directors, peer executives, analysts – it makes a great case for the importance of executive visibility programs, such as our CEO EquityBuilder™ programs, which help create, reinforce and preserve the admiration of these influencers for leaders, and by association, their companies.

Clearly this list isn’t perfect….Toyota still ranks well, although the data would clearly be different if the survey were re-done today. But if you didn’t make the list, or want to improve your ranking, begin by looking within. Reputation begins at home.

Carreen Winters can be reached at cwinters@mww.com.

cwinters General Corporate FOrtune, Most Admired, reputation