Creating and Sustaining a Winning Culture
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Culture-building tools
Bain & Company’s recent survey of management tools and trends around the world is the 11th in a longitudinal series of surveys dating back to 1993.
Why culture, why now?
Today’s emphasis on culture is due in great part to an awareness of its importance to execution. Senior managers have also learned that a winning culture is difficult for competitors to emulate and leaves an enduring legacy that can help their companies succeed after they have retired.
Herb Kelleher, cofounder and executive chairman of Southwest Airlines who led Southwest to the top of the domestic U.S. airline industry, credits the company’s culture with keeping it there. “Everything [in our strategy] our competitors could copy tomorrow,” he once said. “But they can’t copy the culture—and they know it.” Finally, companies in the developed world (and even some in emerging markets) recognize that employees seek more from their jobs than a paycheck. Employees want to be loyal to their employer and passionate about what they are doing. Only a strong culture, a culture with values and beliefs that truly engage people, can deliver this level of meaning.
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