Here are Six Factors that Comprise a Company’s Culture

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Here are Six Factors that Comprise a Company’s Culture

February 12th, 2021 Joel Patterson Leave a comment

“Corporate culture” is a buzz phrase that’s been going around for over a decade now, though the actual meaning behind this hot topic is often lost. A company’s culture goes far beyond celebrations, perks, and the office layout. In fact, it reaches the very core of a business.

Here are six factors that comprise a company’s culture.

Heritage and Vision

Every business has an origin story, and this narrative has the potential to be a driving force for success. It’s important to incorporate your organization’s heritage into your culture. Sharing your business’s unique history connects your employees to the “why” behind your organization’s conception. By celebrating your business’s roots, you connect your staff to the company’s original purpose and encourage them to embody it in their work.

Values and Practices

Companies often define their core values for their employees, but those mean very little if accepted corporate practices don’t align. It’s important to ensure that communication standards, leadership structure, workplace environment, etc. all promote your company values.

Contribution and Recognition

Sometimes it’s hard for employees to see how the work they do affects the big picture. You never want a member of your staff to feel small or insignificant. Celebrate individuals’ accomplishments, hard work, or great ideas. Make a habit of telling your employees how much you appreciate them and how important their contribution is to the overall success of the company.

Promote Growth

No one wants to stick around at a job they feel is stagnant. It’s important to encourage professional growth so employees feel they are improving themselves and their lives while working for you. This can be through continuing education courses, seminars, a book club, or even just built-in flexibility to explore new topics.

Positive Work Environment

This may seem like a no-brainer, but in order to keep employees happy, they have to want to come to work. Take steps to create a positive workplace that’s fun to come to every day.

Stay Consistent

After you’ve decided on the elements that make up your company’s culture, enstate them across the board. Consistency helps build employee trust. If your staff sees inconsistency in your culture, they’ll know it isn’t genuine.

Remember, each company’s culture is unique, and the perfect culture doesn’t always come right away. Don’t be afraid to reflect and revise as you go.

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Joel Patterson (www.JoelPatterson.com) is the founder of The Vested Group, a business technology consulting firm in the Dallas, Texas area, and ForbesBooks author of The Big Commitment: Solving The Mysteries Of Your ERP Implementation. He has worked in the consulting field for over 20 years. Patterson began his consulting career at Arthur Andersen and Capgemini before helping found Lucidity Consulting Group in 2001. For 15 years he specialized in implementing Tier One ERP, software systems designed to service the needs of large, complex corporations. In 2011, Patterson founded The Vested Group, which focuses on bringing comprehensive cloud-based business management solutions to start-ups and well-established businesses alike. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Baylor University.

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How Your Leadership Style Affects Company Culture

February 5th, 2021 Joel Patterson Leave a comment

When you think of company culture, many things may come to mind. Of course, there are the flashier aspects of company culture (think in-office happy hours or team bowling outings). There are also more subtle elements, such as how workspaces are arranged. While these are undoubtedly parts of a company’s culture, they are not what is at the core.

The culture of a business starts at the very top. The leadership styles of executives set the tone for a company’s internal culture. Leadership affects all aspects of business, including perceived values and goals, communication norms, and employee engagement.

Aspects of company culture are most effective when they solve a problem that employees care about. When improving your company’s culture, think about the issues that affect your staff and the solutions that could be implemented to resolve them. Then, sell this idea to your team. If they truly believe in the “why” that backs up an idea, they are more likely to get behind it.

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Joel Patterson (www.JoelPatterson.com) is the founder of The Vested Group, a business technology consulting firm in the Dallas, Texas area, and ForbesBooks author of The Big Commitment: Solving The Mysteries Of Your ERP Implementation. He has worked in the consulting field for over 20 years. Patterson began his consulting career at Arthur Andersen and Capgemini before helping found Lucidity Consulting Group in 2001. For 15 years he specialized in implementing Tier One ERP, software systems designed to service the needs of large, complex corporations. In 2011, Patterson founded The Vested Group, which focuses on bringing comprehensive cloud-based business management solutions to start-ups and well-established businesses alike. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Baylor University.

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10 Tips For Navigating Business Growth

January 29th, 2021 Joel Patterson Leave a comment

When running a business, you are constantly striving to promote growth. Once things start to take off, there’s often a whole new set of challenges that must be addressed. Here are a few tips I’ve found useful when navigating a period of business growth and expansion.

1. Don’t Lose Sight of Your “Why.” Seeing your business grow and thrive is exciting, but it’s important to stay focused on your mission. A rapidly growing business can sometimes take off in a direction that doesn’t align with your core mission. Periods of growth are an opportune time to reflect and realign with your “why.”

2. Learn to Delegate. As an entrepreneur, you often begin by handling almost every aspect of your business. As your business expands, you must delegate to manage your workload. If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed by your organization’s growth recently, look over your responsibilities. Are there aspects of your workload that could be handled efficiently by someone else?

3. Hire with Culture in Mind. Retention of quality talent is essential to the long-term success of a business. When searching for new hires, consider how candidates will do in your company’s unique culture. Of course, credentials are important, but the candidate that looks the best on paper is not always the best fit.

4. Listen to Your Customers. Your customers are the life force of your company. Never lose touch with what your customers want out of your brand. Especially in periods of rapid growth, be sure to focus on customer experience. You can show customers you care through meaningful communications and requests for feedback.

5. Encourage Employee Feedback. Speaking of feedback, it’s vital to listen to your employees as well. During periods of growth, lots of things shift and employees are invaluable sources of information. Their insight into what needs revision or improvement can help your business grow with grace and agility.

6. Analyze Your Inefficiencies. In addition to listening to employee feedback regarding ways to improve your business, seek out inefficiencies in the processes you currently have in place. Is there a manual task that could be automated? Are employees spending too much time on tasks that don’t benefit overall productivity?

7. Reduce Regulation Risk. A growing business has to be on the lookout for new government and industry regulations! Growth can take many different forms﹘ expanding your markets, utilizing new sales channels, teaming up with a distributor, rolling out new products, etc. Big changes like these might mean dealing with new or different regulations. Be sure to do your homework to ensure that you’re in compliance.

8. Integrate Your Processes. When a business is just starting out, the decision is often made to go with the most economical software solutions. This can mean patching many different systems together, which can be especially problematic during high-growth periods. Disparate systems will struggle to keep up with the demand, causing internal issues as well as a diminished customer experience. Switching to a comprehensive business management system allows all departments to communicate effectively and efficiently. It also allows you to access all the data you need at any time, rather than having to gather it from multiple programs.

9. Make Scalability a Priority. When thinking about how to navigate growth in your business, always consider the scalability of your decisions. Demand fluctuates over time, and (if things keep going this way) you will need to account for more growth in the future. Make sure the solutions you implement now can support growth in the future as well.

10. Bring in an Expert. All of this may sound daunting to tackle on your own, but the good news is you don’t have to! Partner with someone that can help grow your business and find software solutions that make business processes more fluent and efficient.

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Joel Patterson (www.JoelPatterson.com) is the founder of The Vested Group, a business technology consulting firm in the Dallas, Texas, area, and ForbesBooks author of The Big Commitment: Solving The Mysteries Of Your ERP Implementation. He has worked in the consulting field for over 20 years. Patterson began his consulting career at Arthur Andersen and Capgemini before helping found Lucidity Consulting Group in 2001. For 15 years he specialized in implementing Tier One ERP, software systems designed to service the needs of large, complex corporations. In 2011, Patterson founded The Vested Group, which focuses on bringing comprehensive cloud-based business management solutions to start-ups and well-established businesses alike. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Baylor University.

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Who’s the Best Person for the Job? 5 Tips to Find ‘Culture Fit’ in a Candidate

January 26th, 2021 Joel Patterson Leave a comment

Many factors go into a company’s decision to hire someone: the candidate’s experience, talent, skills, and ability to communicate, for starters.

But while a sparkling resume and impressive job interview are still important considerations, a job prospect’s ability to fit the company’s culture has never been more critical in the hiring process, says Joel Patterson (www.JoelPatterson.com), a workplace culture expert, founder of The Vested Group and ForbesBooks author of The Big Commitment: Solving The Mysteries Of Your ERP Implementation.

“Companies head into a new year full of uncertainty and are coming off a year of so much change and disruption,” Patterson says. “These challenges test the strength of a work culture, and as companies seek stability, adaptability, and growth, finding the right culture fit is the most crucial factor in choosing a new hire.

“An aligned team will work far better together, be more productive individually, and feel more satisfied in their roles overall. And with more people working remotely, keeping your culture strong and your workflow cohesive is imperative. Adding new people should only serve to enhance it.”

Patterson offers five tips on how to hire for culture fit:

Define and document core values. “First of all, ensure that your company has a set of values, which are the foundation of the culture,” Patterson says. “Company values show what the founder and management hold as important and the behaviors they expect employees to uphold. Spend time analyzing and fine-tuning your company values and document them into clear, specific words.”

Display company culture on the website and social media. “When researching the company, job candidates should get a glimpse of the work culture before the interview and decide if it fits them,” Patterson says. “The company needs to be clear about its core values and promote its environment so it can appeal to the best candidates. Value statements conveyed in content, slides and videos should appear in the company’s careers section, corporate blogs, and social media posts.”

Ask culture-focused questions during the interview. It’s vital for those interviewing candidates to have a firm grasp of the work culture and to ask questions that relate directly to it. “The interviewer should build a picture of who this candidate is both inside and outside the office,” Patterson says. “Ask them things like, what’s their most positive personality trait and their worst, and why for both. What type of team do they thrive in? Have they read our values? Which one resonates the most with them? What have their past relationships with co-workers, managers, and clients been like?”

Let candidates interact with staff. A prospect can say all the right things during an interview, but how they interact with employees can be more telling about whether they’re a culture fit. “Those who do well in interviews and make the short list should be brought back for extensive interaction with staff members,” Patterson says. “You can determine a lot by how engaged they are, what questions they ask, and how employees react to them generally in normal conversation.”

Research your process. Between hirings, Patterson says it’s a good idea to ask around and see if your process reflected your company culture. “Ask recent hires what worked and what didn’t,” he says. “If possible, track down candidates to whom you offered jobs but they turned them down. Find out why. You can always improve your hiring practices so they better align with the company culture.”

“Company culture provides your team with direction and is effectively the glue that binds the team,” Patterson says. “To keep improving it means hiring with culture fit top of mind. Employees who embrace your culture boost morale and productivity and positively impact future recruiting.”

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Why You Should Consider a Digital Transformation for Your Company in 2021

January 8th, 2021 Joel Patterson Leave a comment

As with every new year, it’s important to formulate, plan, and set your business goals. Have you considered how revamping your software solutions could help you achieve those goals? Here are just a few of the reasons to consider a digital transformation for your business in 2021.

1. Keeping Up with Yourself. Your goals most likely include some form of growth—more customers, more accounts, more revenue, new service lines or products. The systems you currently have in place might be able to handle the business you’re doing right now, but what about when you achieve your desired growth? As your company grows, your internal processes can have a hard time keeping up. Outdated processes and systems will eventually cause issues and stall the growth you’ve worked so hard to achieve.

2. Smash Inefficiencies. It’s common for companies to use many different applications to meet all their needs. While this may seem like the fastest or most economical way at first, it can end up being unnecessarily convoluted and inefficient. A comprehensive software system can handle all of your business needs. A cloud-based system, such as NetSuite, eliminates the operational inefficiencies you’re bound to run into when working with multiple applications.

3. Smarter Data. With NetSuite, all of your data is housed in one place and can be easily accessed. A comprehensive business management system makes it easy to get a big-picture view of every aspect of your business and how each facet is working together. Accurate, real-time insights allow you to see precisely what is working and what needs attention.

4. Eliminate Overhead Costs. No more in-house servers or bulky equipment that needs to be replaced or repaired. Since NetSuite is a cloud-based system, it is housed off-site on high-performance, scalable servers. This off-premise infrastructure means no setup or installation on your business’s computing devices. NetSuite’s infrastructure provides a secure platform for all your business applications and substantially reduces your IT costs.

5. Only Keep What You Need. When working with standard software systems, you might get the functionality you need, along with lots of other bells and whistles that aren’t relevant to your business. Or your current systems might do the job, but not as well as they could. NetSuite is a comprehensive, yet versatile enterprise software package. You can tailor it to fit your exact needs, keeping what helps you succeed, and leaving anything else out.

These are a few of the countless reasons why a new and improved software system could transform your company. When you have the best possible tools to work with, you will always get better results.

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5 Ways Leaders Can Eliminate Stress and Reboot for Change In 2021

November 19th, 2020 Joel Patterson Leave a comment

As a challenging year winds down, companies are sifting through what worked and what didn’t as they prepare to reboot for 2021 after dealing with the many difficulties brought on by the pandemic.

And if a business is planning significant changes in its operations in the New Year, the leadership team’s empathy for the workforce is vital in the process, says Joel Patterson (www.JoelPatterson.com), a workplace culture expert, founder of The Vested Group and ForbesBooks author of The Big Commitment: Solving The Mysteries Of Your ERP Implementation.

“Leaders need to be empathetic to help their employees manage stress and stay productive, especially in these unprecedented times,” Patterson says. “The holidays always add stress, but company transitions heading into the New Year, magnified by the uncertainty we all face due to COVID-19, can send that stress off the charts.

“For example, when a company installs new software or makes other major changes in operations and processes, the end-users and middle managers can really feel it as the company tries to ensure those transitions are smooth. Having the human touch from company leadership is critical, as is providing proper training and giving confidence to middle management as their teams implement those systems.”

Patterson offers tips on how leaders can lower stress and keep morale high while implementing changes:

Start with acknowledging the emotional side of change. “There are unexpected twists and turns to any big change in company operations,” Patterson says. “Employees have to adjust to new processes – sometimes after having done things the same way for many years. This learning curve can understandably cause panic. Employees can be resistant to learning how to make it work to their advantage. Leaders need to expect these reactions and develop a plan based on empathy in order to deal with it.”

Know how to listen. “True listening means listening with open ears, open eyes and an open heart,” Patterson says. “It means paying attention to body language, to the tone of voice, to the hidden emotions behind what’s being said. You’ll always gain more from listening than from speaking.”

Know what empathy is. “For a leader, empathy is more than listening and nodding your understanding; it’s understanding that your employees have their own working and communicating styles and a life separate from work,” Patterson says. “In stressful, uncomfortable times like these when change is thrust upon them, you can stay connected with them by making them feel more comfortable. Leaders can begin to do that when they put themselves in their employees’ shoes to better understand things from their perspective.”

Build a culture of psychological safety. Allowing people to feel free to air their concerns and speak their truths during change and upheaval can do wonders for the work culture in the long run. “The foundation becomes stronger because of the trust factor,” Patterson says. “Leaders understand the challenges that exist through the organization, which helps them be more effective in leading their teams through change.”

Emphasize “change energy” over “change fatigue.” “The best organizations understand that there is no endpoint to change,” Patterson says. “Change is for the greater good of continual evolution collectively and individually. Therefore, there are no excuses like being fatigued by change. Instead, leaders need to sell change as a necessary energizer that benefits everyone. Show the workforce how the new systems can work in their favor, not against them.”

“Empathy gives you insight into what others are feeling and thinking,” Patterson says. “At its foundation, empathy informs your decision-making by sharpening your perceptions and intuition.”

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How To Be A Hands-On Leader In Social Distancing Times

October 30th, 2020 Joel Patterson Leave a comment

There are plenty of suggestions out there about how to best lead a company, but have you ever been told that an uninvolved, uninterested, hands-off leadership strategy is the way to go? Probably not. Being a hands-on leader is more important than ever these days, as many teams are working remotely.

The more a leader separates him or herself from the rest of the company, the less effective he’s likely to be. Here are a few things I’ve learned on my path to becoming a productive, involved, hands-on leader:

Honesty. Transparent communication is crucial when developing trust. Employees know when you are vague with your information or messaging. The more you can be completely open with your employees, the more they will trust you to lead them in the future. For example, if we have a complex implementation coming up, and I can see that we are going to need to work longer hours and possibly a weekend or two﹘ I tell my team precisely that. While it may seem like being the bearer of bad news, it’s better than leading them to believe they will be logging out at five every night when that’s simply not the case.

Approachability. It’s vital that every person in the company feels that they can come to you with their problems and you will hear them. The more you listen to your team, the more insight you will gain into how to lead them effectively. Never brush off an employee’s idea, opinion, or problem. Listen with intent, not apathy.

Offer Feedback. If a team or individual is underperforming but hasn’t gotten the feedback needed to address the issue, nothing is going to change. In the same way, if you have employees giving 110% effort and producing outstanding work, that needs to be recognized. Make sure your team knows that you are present; you see the work they’re putting in, and you are on the same side.

Lead by Example. I’ve found that leading by example is an essential element of leadership. The leaders set the attitude of the entire company. You can’t expect a collaborative workforce if you don’t collaborate with them. You can’t expect loyal, dedicated employees if you don’t fight for them as well.

Be the Leader You’d Want to Have. When making decisions, you have to think not only about the success of the company but the happiness of your employees. A solution carried out by an unhappy employee is never a sustainable solution. If you’re not sure about how your decisions are affecting your team, ask for feedback.

In every situation, try to put yourself in the shoes of those you lead. Are you the type of supervisor you’d want to work with? Each of your employees is a human being. It may seem like an obvious statement, but it’s easy to get caught up in the big-picture decisions and forget about the individuals that those decisions affect.

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5 Tips To Avoid ERP Failure And Turn 2020 Disruption Into Success

October 19th, 2020 Joel Patterson Leave a comment

The trials of 2020 have put many businesses in a mode of transformation. For some, that can mean changing anything from their internal operations to the services and products they offer.

Due to advancements in digital technology, massive change was well underway in numerous industries before the pandemic. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) has been a central part of those changes as companies learn to organize and analyze data and use software applications to automate business functions.

But while the main goal in acquiring ERP is to streamline processes and increase productivity, it can be difficult to implement without the right combination of people, training, and technology. Failure with ERP implementation happens for many reasons, and knowing how to avoid those pitfalls is critical to a company’s growth and survival in these trying times, says Joel Patterson (www.JoelPatterson.com), a workplace culture expert, founder of The Vested Group and ForbesBooks author of The Big Commitment: Solving The Mysteries Of Your ERP Implementation

“Many businesses are aware they need to adopt digital technologies to compete in today’s market, but the fear of failure holds some back,” Patterson says. “Often, the barriers to successful ERP implementation have less to do with the software and more to do with communication- and employee-based issues.

“A change of such magnitude in a company requires solid and consistent change management, in which company leaders work well with outside consultants, but more importantly appreciate the importance of their workforce as much as the need for change.”

Patterson offers five tips on how to avoid failure in ERP implementation:

Tie ERP into long-term planning. One reason for engaging in an ERP project is to improve processes for the long haul. Therefore, an organization’s leadership needs to have a vision for the timeline that makes sense for their industry, typically at least 5 years. “It’s a key question for many businesses, especially in terms of selecting and implementing ERP,” Patterson says. “For example, it would be a big mistake to choose a product that doesn’t allow you to easily add new companies or service lines if expansion is a component of your strategic plan. Create a roadmap and share it with your IT partner.”

Put people first. Patterson says that having a solid work culture in which employees, their treatment and their betterment are prioritized is necessary for any ERP implementation to succeed. “You can have great ERP software,” he says, “but your employees are your greatest asset. Listening to them helps the overall effectiveness of the system going forward. If your culture is a mixed bag of nay-sayers and disengaged managers, projects of this magnitude are doomed to fail.”

Get buy-in across the organization. It’s common for people to fear or resist change, especially employees who have been with companies the longest. “When an organization is made up of people who understand the reasons behind what is being done, then they are more likely to be on board with the changes,” Patterson says. “How will these changes not only benefit the company, but more specifically, how does it impact their daily lives? These details need to be clearly laid out.”

Cut out bureaucracy, delegate responsibility. “The consulting team needs to be allowed to play the role they were hired to play, and you need clearly defined decision-makers on the project team,” Patterson says. “Otherwise, too many people wrestling over decisions can bottleneck projects. Your project team should walk you through each stage, and your company needs to establish a good governance structure in which each person knows their role.”

Prioritize aftercare. The next set of challenges comes when the company is running the new system on its own. “You can’t overlook the potential for problems,” Patterson says. “That’s why you want a partner who offers ongoing support. Assign teams to gather data about how employees are using the software, what issues they are encountering, and how to make it more effective overall.”

“In any ERP implementation,” Patterson says, “leaders need to stay connected with their employees and keep departments aligned while encouraging them throughout a sometimes challenging process.”

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Here are Six Factors that Comprise a Company’s Culture

Here are six factors that comprise a company’s culture.

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