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O P I N I O N
Cover from above If you want entrepreneurship in the DNA of your firm’s culture, a top-down commitment to innovation and risk is essential.
H ow important is culture? Since it’s the amorphous, intangible, and mysterious thing that drives your values, perceptions, branding, and more, I’d say it’s critical. On the recruiting side, every prospective employee will say they want to work for someone with a “good culture.” In M&A, a cultural match between two potential partners is one of the most important aspects in ensuring a successful transaction. Culture can also mean success or failure for an organization due to the secondary and tertiary effects, both internal with your team and external to your clients and partners.
Phil Keil
I was recently on a strategic planning engagement where, while conducting management interviews, one of the principals couldn’t quite figure out exactly what was wrong or how to improve. He described various pieces that felt like dominoes, or an interconnected web. “Well, if we could just fix this, then that would fall into place, but that is really connected to this piece over here, etc.” What he was trying to describe, and what was underpinning the whole conversation, was that the firm had lost its sense of direction. The
culture had fallen apart. A strong, intentional, and positive culture is, unfortunately, more of the exception than the rule these days. Your culture is your firm’s DNA and provides motivation, inspiration, guidelines, boundaries, and expectations for your team and clients. The way you communicate and entertain drives your culture and your culture drives your firm’s values.
You must be intentional about how you create
See PHIL KEIL, page 4
THE ZWEIG LETTER October 16, 2017, ISSUE 1220
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