The impact of positive culture on corporate performance
Reproduced below is an Exhibit excerpted from Corporate Culture and Performance (1992), by John Kotter and James Heskett, that highlights the difference in results over an eleven-year period between twelve companies that did and twenty companies that did not have organizational cultures that highly value employees, customers, and owners and that encourage leadership from everyone in the firm—which Kotter and Heskett refer to Performance-Enhancing Cultures. So if customer needs change, a firm’s Performance-Enhancing Culture almost forces people to change their practices to meet the new needs. And anyone, not just a few people, is empowered to do just that.
These results are, in a word, staggering. To consider that the difference between a nine-hundred percent and a seventy-five percent appreciation in equity value is somewhat attributable to the strength of a company’s corporate culture highlights the significance of what–even today–is an all too often-overlooked issue.
#Think about it