hat do people at your company do when no one is watching? Are they motivated to act like owners? Do they know how to innovate and advance the business without being explicitly told what to do?
Every leader wants to be able to answer these questions with an unqualified yes, but in reality many cannot. The problem is that too many companies lack confidence in the ties that bind their enterprise together. In a recent Bain & Company survey, more than one-third of executives worldwide did not agree with the statement,"Our stated values effectively drive frontline actions, even when no one is looking." Many others share these concerns.
For a relative handful of world-class performers, however, the picture looks different. These companies inspire loyalty from employees, who want to stay and be part of a team. They generate commitment to go the extra mile, to do the right thing rather than just the easy thing. At these companies, people not only know what they should do, they know why they should do it.
How do these standouts ensure that everyone acts in the best interests of the company, even when no one is watching? The answer: culture. At a time when it is commonplace for enterprises to stretch around the globe, culture provides the glue that creates trust and a sense of shared purpose. Bain surveys indicate that business leaders fully recognize the role that culture plays in focusing and engaging a company's employees.Yet our research also indicates that fewer than 15 percent of companies succeed in building high-performance cultures.
It's tempting to imagine that all high-performance cultures look alike.They don't, and that is part of their power.To be effective, a high-performance culture must be tailored