The Business Coach with Laura Murphy: Setting up the culture...

Answer: “It very much depends on what type of culture you’re aiming for. And for that, you need to be very sure about your own unconscious values for it’ll be those which drive your behaviour and hence the culture.

I knew one MD who professed to have an open, customer focused culture yet ignored staff suggestions and paid lip service to customer service. You can imagine the discord that caused.

There are ways of revealing your hidden values and a coach can help you do that. Once you understand what they are, you can put steps in place to build the company based on them.

Structures, processes and procedures will help support the culture but the biggest asset is your staff group. Hire the right people by understanding what drives them as well as for their skills and abilities so they can support the culture you want to build.

In the end though, culture comes from the top. In the hurly burly and pressures of development it’s easy to forget the culture you wanted originally. List those values now and keep them close at hand to remind you.”

Laura is an organisation development specialist and executive coach with mtc2 ltd.  To solve your problem email [email protected] Twitter @WayfinderWoman Names and details have been changed to protect confidentiality.