Culture Is Critical

You are what you hire.

Organizational culture is garnering a great deal of press these days. It is held up as a key contributor to the success of companies like Southwest Airlines, Starbucks and W.L. Gore. It's vilified when things go terribly wrong, like the explosion on the Space Shuttle Challenger or the abuses of an Enron or Worldcom. What seems lost is just how these high impact cultures evolved in the first place.

Culture is about people - people who lead, and those who follow. Leaders create standards of behavior by what is rewarded, what is punished and what is tolerated. These standards are created by both formal systems and informal ones, and the higher up the chain of command, the greater the influence on behaviors beneath.

New leaders to an organization either reinforce the existing culture, or tweak it according their own drivers, motivators and values. If values are well aligned with the existing culture, the leader will move things forward according to the greater vision. If values are in conflict, the leader moves forward according to their own agenda.

Given this, it seems strange more attention isn't paid to cultural fit in the hiring process. Since the cost of a mis-hire now being estimated at between 100-200 percent of an executive's annual compensation, it would seem that all organizations would be making cultural fit paramount to their hiring practices.

Even the executive search industry, supposedly the experts, pays little more than lip service to cultural issues in the hiring process. The philosophy has long been "We'll lead the horses to water, you determine whether or not they will drink."

This is simply not enough. KeyStone understands that you don't hire executives just for kicks, you expect a return upon investment, a leader that will get the very most out of their team and their resources, creating high impact for years to come. Our process goes well beyond the rest of the search industry in understanding and assessing candidates to your unique culture.

The data is in - Paying attention to culture pays off. If you are skeptical, just ask Southwest Airlines, Starbucks or the countless other organizations who have taken the time to align their hiring practices with their unique cultures. For resources on culture, click here.