Every business wants to create a company culture that employees and customers fall in love. However, cultivating and fostering such a culture isn’t a quick fix. Most companies that want to create a successful culture don’t have a concrete plan for how to get there. The end result is that management ends up essentially throwing darts at the wall and hoping that something sticks. What highly successful companies—such as Apple and Zappos do is establish a framework from the ground up to build a culture that generates success and makes everyone feel like part of the family. You’ll need to figure out your core values, make sure that your employees are communicating, and be prepared to change your culture over time.

Outline Your Core Values

Do you understand what your company’s core values are? Can you outline them in a few short sentences or share them with your direct reports in a compelling message? If your company’s core values aren’t clear, then it is important to gain clarity around the core values and learn how to communicate them to others in a way that people can stand behind them. For instance, are you focused on creativity? Are you about moving fast and breaking things? Is your business geared towards collaboration? Once you figure out what your core values, make them the foundation for everything you do. Connect what you do with why you do it and give your people reason to do the same.

Learn From Past Mistakes

It is absolutely critical to learn from your past mistakes as a company. Have you ever been a part of other organizations where the culture was flawed? Has your company culture had issues in the past? Learn from these mistakes and think about what limited success, and what cultivated it.

Incentivize Communication

Companies with poor cultures usually have a communication problem. Employees don’t communicate, and there is friction between departments. This lowers productivity and employee happiness. Make sure your company is cultivating relationships that are both honest and open. You want employees to be able to freely share their ideas and thoughts without fear.

Your Culture Is Going To Evolve Over Time

Culture is just like anything else. It grows and evolves over time. You can expect your company culture to change as trends change, and as your company grows. It is important to make updates to your culture as needed without straying too far from your core values.

Culture is something that isn’t built overnight. It takes months, and in some cases even years for your culture to get set in place. But the results are indisputable—employees working at companies with strong cultures are happier, more productive, and less likely to leave. And customers who benefit from strong company culture tend to become repeat buyers who are less likely to try out a competitor’s service. Your company culture is absolutely worth investing in, and management will reap the long term benefits of successful company culture development.

* Deciding Company Culture image credit goes to: rawpixel.

* Effective Team image credit goes to: rawpixel.