Serious about building culture? You must read these books

Company culture is a complex amalgamation of several attributes, behaviors, and processes that characterize a company. The importance of the right company culture cannot be overemphasized in any organization. In this blog, we present to you the top 5 books written by experts in the field that you should read as an entrepreneur. These books focus on setting the right culture and how to maintain it. We recommend these books for entrepreneurs, Managers, and Leaders.

Change The Culture, Change The Game

The book “Change the culture, change the game” emphasizes the importance of accountability within any organization. This book will help you discover how to get the game-changing results that you really want and how to maintain them. As stated by the authors, Connors and Smith, paying close attention to your organizational structure and culture is very important because it determines the outputs and/or outcomes of any organization.

Managers make the company culture, their daily actions either shape or ruin the company. The experiences they create answer the question of how the company is run. Right/wrong culture is always attributed to managers and leaders. Book also contains action plans that help to support managers in re-examining their practices in order to get the desired result.

The book also made mention of managers being clear when stating the organization’s aim and desired results because confusion causes chaos. Managers must also back up the stated desired results with their actions and day-to-day decisions. For every manager who wants to improve their organization’s results and their role in creating the right structure, the book is definitely a must-read for them.

The Culture Code

It is surprising that some organizations perform beyond their desired results while some do not meet their expectations. The missing concept is the right culture. The author of this book, Daniel Coyle wrote about how a great culture can be formed.

The book outlines three (3) core skills that are required in forming and maintaining a great company culture which are;

Build Safety: Safety helps to create a sense of belonging, open debate for learning, and, a foundation for risk-sharing. The right culture ensures the safety of employees because Safety is like the glue that binds people together.

Share Vulnerability: Employees should share their weaknesses and honest feedback with one another. It creates a platform for cooperation and trust. Sharing vulnerability is simply calling for assistance.

Establish Purpose: The values, aim, mission, priorities, and goals should be clearly stated for all members of the team. A good structure should be in place to reinforce them. All members should always be reminded of the desired result.

The book contains real-life examples that explain these core components in detail. To understand in detail, we recommend you get a copy of the book and read it.

Delivering Happiness

In a world where the e-commerce business worldwide is suffering, Zappos, an online shoe retail company was declared one of the best companies to work for. Why? Zappos built a unique company culture and great customer experience by delivering happiness.

There are 3 great lessons to learn about building an awesome company. Let’s have them.

Company culture is more important: Some organizations make the mistake of hiring too many employees at a time. Most of them end up being a terrible match for the company. The key is to hire slowly and carefully. Hiring the right employees will offer the best customer service.

Be the best at a selected thing: Zappos is well known today for customer service. This book advice to be the best at what you really want to do and not a jack of all.

Invest everything in your product and $0 in marketing: Zappos decided to improve its core service. Great customer service helped them get their customers to spread the word in the beginning. With dedication, they generated a media boom without spending a dime on marketing.

The book really explained Zappos’ success story and Tony’s. We recommend you get Delivering Happiness.

Work Rules

Work Rules talks about one of the most eyed companies “Google” has been able to achieve and become one of the best innovative and desired company to work for. The book elaborates on some innovative practices in their HR. The book is the story of how Google thinks about their employees, what they have learned over the past fifteen years.

In the book “Work Rules”, Laszlo Bock, Google Head of People Operations shared the keys to their success. He shared 10 work rules that companies should follow. He also shared eight attributes that are shared by Google highest-scoring managers and some onboarding processes for new hires.

Let’s have a look at the 10 work rules; Give your work meaning, trust your people, hire only people who are better than you, don’t confuse development with managing performance, focus on the two tails, be frugal and generous, pay unfairly, nudge, manage the rising expectation, and repeat all the work rules.

Building a great company culture does not happen out of the blue moon, it requires dedication and consistency.

Creativity Inc.

This book is one of the best books every entrepreneur should read. The book is based on the 30 years of experience of the president of Pixar, Ed Catmull. Creativity, Inc. can be likened to an instruction manual for ingraining inspiration into directors, managers, and, employees. This book focuses on what it takes to create a unique culture that ensures creativity instinct in a workplace no matter the workforce.

There are three key lessons to learn from the book “Creativity Inc”. Let’s have them

Having a good team: Ideas are important but the team that will handle the idea is more important. Having talented people on your team to execute your ideas is very important.

Never blame failures on single people, always hold the entire team responsible: When mistakes happen, the entire team should be responsible and not individuals. According to this book, mistakes are made by the team and not individuals.

Encourage employees to decorate their own workspaces: You should encourage your employees to show who they are by letting them design their own workspace. Creativity is key in any organization. This is one of the skills used at Pixar to drive their employees to design their workplace. It helps them to be more comfortable and effective.