Culture Fit & Staffing: is it all talk?

I’ve known Bob for twenty years. When he found himself President and equity partner in a small but prosperous distribution company, he thought he had finally arrived. He said to me at the time he got the job how excited he was to at last be in a position to worry about things like vision and strategy. Finally, he would have a chance to focus on the important aspects of business.
One night over dinner recently he recounted his story. About ten thirty Monday morning, the first wave hit. Two of his star managers walked into his office and announced with all the resignation of a fighter being carried out of the ring, that they could no longer tolerate working together. Pushing back a meeting with his CFO, Bob decided to dedicate the necessary time to bring these two back to earth. After a forty-five minute counseling session, they agreed they could work it out.
As he later left his CFO meeting, one of his staff cautioned that the service department was threatening to sabotage one of his best sales people because he didn’t treat them right. Jumping into another personnel crisis, Bob put his afternoon schedule on hold to meet with the service and sales team.
Two hours later, he found himself trying to put what was left of his schedule back together and salvage something productive out of his day. Bob complained that he sometimes felt that upwards of seventy-five percent of his week was sometimes spent on personnel related issues - resolving conflict, mentoring, hiring, firing, coaching or pumping up the team. Bob was so busy trying to put salve on the wounds and reduce or contain the casualties of so many of his team during the workweek, that vision and strategy became distant strangers.
Talking with a number of colleagues and entrepreneurs, Bob’s not exactly residing in an exclusive club. More and more business owners and managers of large organizations have lamented what they term the unfortunate but necessary time they must spend on issues that get in the way of productive work caused by clashing personalities, raging egos, conflicting styles and insecurities. These issues can sometimes be magnified by our prevailing focus on building a team comprised of different levels of experience, skills and styles in the hope that the result generates quality and quantities of work greater than the individual parts of the team.
Personnel issues are terrible for morale, stifle productivity and cause turnover which can be costly in many ways. One answer is to share with new and existing employees your plan to build a positive culture at your company. What is it that we, as managers, are striving to build? What is our vision of the culture that would work best for us? Is it a culture that promotes open dialogue and eliminates the usual tendencies that businesses have to compartmentalize responsibilities? Are we trying to build a team of people who collaborate across departmental or organizational lines? Why do we want to build this and how will it help our company achieve which of its goals?
Put the reasons for building this culture into logical perspective so that people understand what goals your company has and how you hope to accomplish them. Once people understand what it is you’re aiming to accomplish, you can support them by giving them specifics about how to work together. Offer examples about how people and organizations can collaborate to succeed. And then, reinforce this information by pointing out examples where excellent cooperation resulted in great work and happy customers.
Leaders and executives have long sung the song of clearly painting the vision they have of where their company belongs in the future. They talk about their industry, their organizations, their management structure and the tactical plans they believe necessary to motor them ahead of their competitors. But, as we approach the dawn of our twenty first century and we come to understand and grasp the importance of the impact of people in our business, it is time to clearly address in our strategic plans, the shape, design and texture of the culture we believe will allow our vision to become a reality. Then, perhaps we can get back to the business of work.