Culture Care Technologies
  Human Resource & Organization Development Specialists in Company Culture

Sustainability

Sustainability, like teamwork, innovation or service excellence, is a way of thinking. It's not the outcome of monitoring behaviour and staff compliance with an enforced set of policies and procedures. It's the result of collectively learning how to see the world through, think from and act on, a set of shared cultural values and beliefs (e.g., only a triple bottom line can measure success; the best business decisions are sustainable decisions).

Sustainability is fundamentally about company culture – “Just the way we think around here”. And culture provides the most sustainable foundation for meeting all aspects of the triple bottom line of profit, people and planet.

For example:

Culture and alignment

Alignment remains the central challenge for every organization: How to ensure that all members maintain a laser-like focus of their energy, thinking and actions on the organization's mission, vision and strategic priorities. Conventional alignment mechanisms, such as direct orders, supervision and policy manuals, require a lot of the scarce resources of time, money and energy. The demand on these resources through cultural alignment is negligible and easily sustainable.

Culture, asset value and competitive advantage

Company culture internally is like goodwill externally: it's the intangible factor, the ‘holy grail' of accounting. If it's dysfunctional, it's a major liability; if it's effective, it's the biggest asset you have. As an intangible asset, culture is extremely difficult for competitors to imitate and can be a potent source of sustainable competitive advantage.

Culture and the best employees

Money neither attracts the best employees nor brings out the best in employees. People also work for something more important than money -- they work for meaning. Through meaning, work becomes more than just a job. And it's through company culture that work acquires meaning and evokes commitment. A recruitment and selection process that considers person-culture fit attracts the best employees and retains them at a minimal and sustainable turnover rate.