Establishing and maintaining the right company culture is a major key to success in any business these days, especially with the growth of the millennial generation of workers. It has a huge impact on productivity, as well as morale and loyalty to the company. In this age of interactive social media, your culture image quickly spreads to customers, and determines their loyalty.
Everyone knows and admires the leaders, including Google and Zappos, but most entrepreneurs have only a fuzzy idea of what to do to get there. If you are looking for specifics, as well as the science behind it, you should take a look at a new book, "Trust Factor - The Science of Creating High-Performance Companies," by Paul J. Zak. He says trust is the key to a good culture.
Zak is the director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University, and he has studied the connection between trust and performance all over the world. Trust causes the brain to release oxytocin, which stimulates productivity and raises motivation.
So, how do you build trust? He cites eight leadership actions, which I also recommend, from a non-scientific perspective, as a mentor to entrepreneurs. Start with these to build the great business culture you need to succeed today:
It's important to get it right the first time, because repairing and replacing a negative workplace culture is far more time consuming - change is always difficult. Equally important, you need all the productivity and loyalty you can get right up front with a startup. In addition, very few people get a second chance to be trusted.