3 min read
CultureWise vs. Top Workplaces: One Builds Your Culture, One Celebrates It
Top Workplaces celebrates the culture you have. CultureWise builds it week by week. How the two fit together for leaders who want both.
By Rob Wolff, Senior Consultant
Best of the Best
It\’s hard to read a business journal or to view LinkedIn without seeing a reference to a Best Place to Work once or twice a week. Some offer tips and insight into how to be recognized as a BPTW. Those who win the designation are understandably and justifiably proud. On a certain scale, the award is recognition that you\’ve made it – you conquered that hill and you reside at the top. Now, it\’s time to focus on those other business priorities and opportunities, right?
Regular readers of our blog know that our team works closely with business owners and CEOs who are interested in creating a culture of performance. Our clients recognize the power and opportunity inherent in a clear, well-defined culture, and how it offers employees – as a whole and individually – an opportunity to perform at their full potential.
You may think that BPTW winners have their culture down pat, and that they\’re working on more pressing issues, with a more strategic focus. Clearly, you can\’t be recognized as one of the Best Places to Work without having a fantastic culture, so you\’d expect that we work exclusively with those who aspire to get to that level and to become winners themselves some day.
We Won! Time to Move on?
Winners aren\’t winners by accident. They generally have strong employee-focused processes, and even stronger leadership that distinguishes them from everyone else. That\’s why a surprising number of our clients come to us with a BPTW designation already. At first glance, that may seem like a waste of time and focus, but it really points to the fact that a visionary, focused, and enlightened leader knows that good is never good enough. “Best,” is in fact a relative term. Rarely does it mean that \’we\’re the best we can be.\’ Our BPTW award-winning clients know that there\’s always room to improve, and they\’re committed to a continuous pursuit of “better.”
It\’s difficult to run and lead a business today. The priorities and challenges are seemingly endless. Staffing, branding, market positioning, keeping pace with technological change, chasing the quarterly earnings numbers, varying demands and expectations from customers, employees and even vendors … The complexity to managing those issues is magnified by a factor of “X,” where “X” is the number of employees on your team, because a business\’ performance (by any measure) is affected by how everyone comes in and does what they do.
Well, if you define culture in very basic and straightforward terms as “how things get done around here, how we work with each other, our clients and our vendors,” then it stands to reason that it would be pretty smart to ensure that you\’re very clear about what you want that culture to look like and to be. That one action – focusing on your culture – impacts every single person on your team and every part of your business. A workplace that\’s intentional about creating a well-defined culture of performance certainly sounds like a Better Place to Work.
If you\’d like to understand how easy it could be to develop your own high performing culture, just shoot us an email or give us a call.
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