Hilti, a major supplier of fastening and demolition systems to the construction industry, takes the idea of company culture very seriously and devotes 10 million Swiss francs and 30,000 working days per year to building and nurturing it.
But Eivind Slaaen, the firm’s head of people and culture development, believes that, when you get down to fundamentals, the basic principles behind individual cultures have a lot in common. This means that, while how things are done might differ, the core principles remain the same.
1. Tap into people’s emotions: You need to address their head, hearts and hands. People don’t simply work for companies for the intellectual challenge, but because they believe in it and its values.
2. Keep things simple and be pragmatic: They’re the only things that work. At one point, we introduced a competency model that looked fantastic on paper but proved impossible to use – it was so complicated that people needed a manual or dictionary to make it work. As a result, no one used it. So we went back to the drawing board and introduced a simple alternative based on six competencies that everyone understands.
3. Acknowledge that feedback and criticism are a gift: They will only be given by people who care about the organisation so give them the opportunity to make a contribution – even if they are making negative comments or saying things that are difficult to hear.
4. Understand yourself: Self-awareness and self-acceptance are necessary before you can change how you behave which will, in turn, lead to change in how other people behave.
