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Measure improvements in your culture.

The final step is to measure improvements in your culture. Using a custom
culture survey, you can obtain periodic measurements of improvement in
culture and culture management. This practice has been adopted by several
of our clients. For example, Emergent Bio Solutions monitors cultural change
and progress approximately every two years, as described in our book
Corporate Culture: The Ultimate Strategic Asset.43

ACTION STEPS TO BECOME A CULTURE CHAMPION

The first (and perhaps the most important step) to become a culture champion is to
take a first step! This means making a commitment to action to manage and
improve your corporate culture. This has been done not only by companies that
have become culture champions, but also by companies that recognized they had
dysfunctional or even toxic cultures requiring change.

Recently Well Fargo, Uber and United have all recognized that their culture requires
“more than a tune up.” Each has made a public announcement of its intent to
improve its culture and taken some specific steps in towards that objective. For
example, Wells Fargo has increased an offer for settlement with account holders
hurt by its practices of opening unauthorized accounts. Tim Sloan, CEO of Wells
Fargo, has said that this was “an important step to make things right for our
customers.”44 Similarly, the Board of United Continental Holdings Inc. has removed
the role of Board Chairman from its CEO, Oscar Munoz, and indicated that it will be
revamping executive compensation incentives.45 Finally, Travis Kalanick resigned as
CEO from Uber, the firm he co-founded. All of these actions are positive steps, but
the result of a failure to manage culture effectively.

43 Eric Flamholtz and Yvonne Randle, Corporate Culture: The Ultimate Strategic Asset, Stanford
University Press, 2011.
44 James Rufus Koren, “Wells Boosts offer in account scandal,” Los Angeles Times, Business,
Saturday April 22, 2017, C1.
45 Susan Carey, “United Moves on Executives,” The Wall Street Journal, Saturday-Sunday, April 22-
23, 2017, p. 1.

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