How to build a winning company

In the noughties, a bunch of smart guys published books about how organisations with strong cultures heavily outperform those without. At the time they bordered on controversial.

Now, of course, the evidence in favour of the theory is manifold and nigh on every leader is keen to create a progressive culture of their own. Take a look at Zappos, Next Jump and Red Bull for cult-like, brand-defining cultures that bring home the bacon.

For these brands, culture is the ultimate talent attraction tool – not only as a point of differentiation against competition, but also as a means of filtering out those unsuited to the organisation. From the standpoint of existing employees, the culture is the driving force of their motivation and performance.

As HR strategist Mervyn Dinnen points out: “The company can no longer assume the employee is grateful for the opportunity, now the employer has to say, ‘we’re grateful they’re going to spend some time with us’.” It’s the culture that will binds the employee to the organisation.

Job seekers want to work for these companies for a number of reasons – perhaps most notably their missions, values, people and benefits. Examining those elements in greater detail gives us a clear idea of how to build cultures that: