The Keys To The Commitment Required For Sustained Organizational Success

Employees and customers, like people in general, are impacted by their direct experiences with others. People are emotional creatures and research by my colleague, Dr. Drea Zigarmi, has shown that employee passion is a result of our emotional experiences. As a result, while leaders of an organization may be individuals to whom we are willing to demonstrate ongoing commitment, our experiences with our direct manager, or employees can undermine it. That said, the single best available key for any organization is to build a clear, strong and effective culture that shapes both our attitudes and practices as well as that of the entire workforce, from top to bottom.

Such organizational cultures are ones where its people 1) passionately believe in its purpose, 2) see this purpose being realistically connected and contributing to their own expectations, 3) are open and collaborative work environments where people are connected to each other and seek all-win results for both themselves and their organization’s key stakeholder groups, and 4) treat people fairly and with respect, including demonstrating genuine caring for their well-being.

In the book I co-authored with Dr. Ken Blanchard entitled MANAGING BY VALUES we described such organizations as part of a desirable class not necessarily bigger, but better—a ‘Fortunate 500’ type of organization. Such organizations do actually exist in large part, though imperfect, as they strive to meet the types of performance criteria just noted. In fact, many put this call into action after reading this bestselling book which has been translated and distributed across the globe in 23 languages at last count. 

The essence of the practical methodology for building winning cultures is a clear set of meaningful business values as guiding principles to ensure ongoing success by fulfilling expectations of key stakeholder groups (customers, employees, owners, lenders, suppliers, and others). It is noteworthy that in our experience, these values do not infringe on the different types of personal values among employees. Instead, these guiding principles work for everyone as they are based on mutual self-interest. This point was reinforced for me when I heard Dr. Paul Hersey, world famous leadership expert, say at age 80 that after working in 137 countries around the world during his career he had concluded that we would be better off looking at what we all share in common, rather than focusing on our differences, noting that "we are all human beings who want to enjoy our lives!"

For an organization to have a strong culture it must continually communicate, reinforce, and celebrate both progress and successful results gained at all levels (individual, group/team, and organizational). Most importantly, it must also consistently align practices at all levels with these guiding values principles—typically no more than three to five for any organization. To make the importance of alignment clear, our experience and that of other leadership experts such as Jim Collins, author of GOOD TO GREAT, is that more than 80% of an organization’s efforts should be on aligning practices at all levels with its values (versus clarifying and communicating).

When the preceding occurs, organizations experience higher sustained performance over time by unleashing the potential of ordinary people to achieve extra-ordinary results. People work together synergistically not only for their own good, but also for their key stakeholder groups—even during tough times when good intentions tend to disintegrate as both personal and the organization’s character are tested. This comprehensive process has been successfully used by organizations of numerous sizes and sectors, resulting in significantly improved financial results and strengthened commitments from customers, employees, owners, strategic allies and others.