Of Company Culture and Loyalty to God

Jan Newman gave a speech on Loyalty to God and Family. He discussed how you can never compromise (crunch time) your loyalty to the Lord or your family; the Lord requires a willing heart and mind and our greatest legacy will be our family and the Lord.

“Never be too busy with work to accept a calling.”

He mentioned that when he was working on his company he served as a bishop and then a stake president. He gave the advice that having integrity and honesty will make you stick out like a sore thumb. People will want you!!

In the paper So You Want to be an Entrepreneur, The Acton Foundation lists three areas of knowledge which are critical for starting a successful business:

1.      In-depth knowledge of the competitive structure of an industry and a network of contacts within that industry;

2.      The skills to run the daily operations of a small, rapidly growing company; and

3.      The ability to raise money. 

Understanding daily operations is critical for entrepreneurs because they include many different issues: ". . . from accounting, production, organizational and administrative dilemmas to general business philosophy. All of these must be woven into a consistent set of principles and procedures. A disorganized accounting system or poor physical surroundings can likewise take a heavy toll on profits"

This stuck out to me:

"If the company culture is flawed, almost any strategy is in jeopardy."

Why did it stick out? Because I work in an office where some of these things are really broken. I have been working on trying to change many of the problems that we have on a recurring basis; however, I have come to the realization that the problem is the boss and he is not going to change.

I have experienced what flawed culture can do. It decreases morale, increases turnover, decreases customer satisfaction, and ultimately does take a heavy toll on profits. Turnover is expensive. Unhappy customers don’t give referrals. But what do you do when the cause of the problem is the owner who won’t change? You either leave or deal with it the best you can.

That is something I would like to learn; how to manage up and change a boss who is stuck in behaviors that, I worry, may run him out of business.