Your organization’s culture is not what your CEO or executive team believes it is or proclaims it to be. It’s what your employees, customers and investors believe it to be. This article discusses three keys to shaping a culture that aligns with the business, rather than letting one’s culture determine the business.

1. YOUR CULTURE SHAPES WHAT YOUR
BUSINESS BECOMES
Submitted by Bill Thomas SHRM-SCP, SPHR May 5, 2017
In Good to Great, Jim Collins found that culturally aligned companies are 6 times more profitable
than their competitors. Louis Gerstner, former CEO of IBM, explained that culture isn’t just one
aspect of the game - it is the game. It’s the engine that drives everything happening, and not
happening, in the organization. Reinforcing those views are dozens of companies whose
pronounced and powerful cultures have been credited with unprecedented business success or
market dominance including Southwest Airlines, Ritz-Carlton, Disney, Harley-Davidson, Lincoln
Electric, Zappos and Google, among others.
Despite such culture-driven success stories, many HR leaders still have a hard time getting their
CEO or Company President to pay attention to it. Part of the problem is that oftentimes we can’t
readily define culture in a way that’s important to CEO’s and we can’t translate it into something
that’s tangible and actionable. While in our guts we all believe culture is important, we usually
can’t effectively describe why or how it impacts an organization’s performance and business
results. On the other hand, some HR leaders have found culture to be a powerful opportunity to
demonstrate HR’s Value-add. But how exactly did they take advantage of that opportunity?
Over 35 years of in-the-field experience with significant culture and other change management
initiatives has resulted in a culture management model we call A.C.E. In order of attention, the
letters stand for Clarity, Engagement and Accountability. To help people more readily remember
and speak to it, we switch the order of the three letters to form the acronym of A.C.E. This brief
overview of the ACE Model is for HR leaders looking to strengthen their company cultures and
leverage those cultures into business performance gains.

2. CLARITY
Senior leaders are often unable to help other people see what they see or make it real to
them. HR plays a key role in this step as facilitator. Specifically, HR can drive and facilitate the
process that brings clarity and meaning to each key element of the company’s culture such as its
vision, mission, values, storytelling, policies, etc.
One of the toughest clarity challenges when it comes to culture is helping the leadership team
see and confront the brutal truth. Culture is not what the CEO or executive team believes it is or
proclaims it to be. Culture is what your employees, customers and investors believe it to be.
It’s their beliefs, and the decisions they make about your company based on those beliefs,
that determines your company’s success. And it’s not just your current employees, customers
and investors, but your former and prospective ones as well. Using surveys, focus groups and/or
targeted interviews, HR can help the organization define the true current culture, compare it to
the desired future, and determine how best to close the culture gap.
Next, terms like vision, strategy, values and culture are typically seen as fluffy ivory tower terms
by most employees. HR can design and facilitate the process of translating those terms into
specific behaviors and actions that occur at the individual employee level. This creates clarity and
relevance for employees as to how their daily tasks and decisions impact the company’s strategy,
values and results.
For example, one company seeking to build and be viewed as a truly customer-centric culture,
reviewed every job description in the company to ensure each job had a key responsibility that
specifically impacted the customer’s experience with the company. Another company used small
employee teams in each department to identify specific ways every job in the department could
demonstrate or advance each of the company’s four core values.
ENGAGEMENT
Leaders are usually unwilling or don’t know how to involve people in the culture’s
evolution. Here, HR leaders play a key role by expediting the design, evaluation and continued
evolution of policies, processes and practices needed to have an organization that’s fully engaged
in its culture.
Hiring, on-boarding, promotions, rewards and recognition, training and development, and even
terminations, must all be consistent with the values and cultural direction. HR can define and
accelerate the application of those connections. Do the organization’s hiring and promotion
criteria and practices truly support and advance the desired culture? Are culture-supportive
behaviors clearly considered and used to shape how rewards are allocated and withheld? Is
training available to help people develop the skills and capabilities needed to leverage the culture

3. into business gains? And so on. Every stage of the employee life cycle represents an opportunity
to engage and connect people with the cultural drivers the company is pursuing.
For example, one particular organization is working to evolve into a more collaborative culture.
So they developed a process for departments to identify cross-departmental dependencies and
cooperation points, as well as use shared goal setting techniques, as part of their annual
budgeting and planning process. They also provided training for their managers and employees
on collaborative problem solving skills and meeting facilitation skills. And they included several
team impact considerations in their performance management and compensation practices.
In addition to the culture impact of HR practices, managers often don’t realize the impact their
own style can have, despite their commitment or intent, on the organization’s cultural direction.
Employees don’t hear what leaders say as much as they watch what leaders do. HR can show
leaders the importance of and steps for modeling the management style and behaviors that are
consistent with the cultural direction. HR can coach managers, helping them see how they’re
coming across to their employees or peers, and discussing ideas for them to improve the impact
they have on employees buying into and connecting with the company’s desired culture.
ACCOUNTABILITY
Many senior leaders are seen as fad-like with histories of launching great ideas but not
following-through. HR can play a key role here by integrating the various cultural priorities with
related performance drivers and relevant management processes.
In particular, a company’s management process for defining, monitoring and ensuring
accountability is one of the most important, yet allusive, keys to shaping an effective culture.
Organizations talk a lot about accountability, but many of them are actually quite weak when it
comes to making it real. (See related article: The Consequence Conundrum © – A Performance
Culture’s Worst Enemy.) HR can add value here by helping the organization first define it. For
example, Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center (EIRMC) has “Accountability” as one of its core
values, and does an effective job of defining what that means.1
Accountability at EIRMC.
 I will act like an owner
 I will pull my weight
 I will be fully accountable for everything I do and say
 The problem is mine until it is solved
 I will appropriately hold others accountable
Another key to creating the needed accountability is establishing a baseline culture measure,
tracking its progress, and expecting everyone to demonstrate continual progress against the key

4. culture measure(s). As part of this culture measurement process, I like to set a Thematic Goal 2
or
WIG 3
or Critical Number 4
that cuts across and integrates all departments and business units,
and creates a common challenge that causes people to think and act more collectively. It also
provides short-term milestones that represent opportunities to celebrate and build momentum –
thus further reinforcing the culture’s progress.
CONCLUSION
There will always be those company leaders who see culture as the soft stuff that their HR folks
tend to. At some point, however, every leader realizes that their exciting vision, breakthrough
strategy or compelling business plan just isn’t living up to its hype or expectations. That’s an ideal
time for HR to step in and show them the connection. But here’s an important caveat: don’t lead
with the word “culture.” And don’t talk about things like morale, values, air hockey tables and how
people come first.
Begin by talking about the business and the possible obstacles that could be stopping the
organization from more effectively executing its business objectives. I’m certain that in that
discussion, you’ll find definite examples where the lack of Clarity, Engagement and/or
Accountability is preventing more effective performance. Help leaders understand, focus on and
improve those three drivers, and you will help improve business performance while also taking
quiet but deliberate steps at evolving and leveraging a more effective culture.
End Notes:
1
See website for Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center – http://eirmc.com/careers/culture-
values.dot
2
See Thematic Goals in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
3
See Wildly Important Goals (WIG) in The 4 Disciplines of Execution by Chris McChesney,
Sean Covey & Jim Huling
4
See Critical Number in Scaling Up by Verne Harnish
MEMBER BIO:
Bill is the Managing Principal of Centric Performance, LLC, a consultancy that focuses on
organizational performance and growth. He has over 35 years of experience including national
and global HR management roles at PricewaterhouseCoopers and Dell, respectively. He has

5. helped lead significant culture and change management efforts at both firms and at numerous
client organizations since joining Centric Performance in 2001. He is a member of SHRM's 2017
HR Disciplines Special Expertise Panel.
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