Culture Matters: The Essential

Elements of a Winning Organization

# F U T U R E M

Kory Kolligian@Altitude_IncCOOAltitude

Ralph Folz@ralphfolzCEOWordStream

Culture Matters: The Essential Elements

of a Winning Organization

# F U T U R E M

Kory Kolligian, Altitude

#FUTUREM

Kory’s video.

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A brief insight into the design and innovation

consulting industry.

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Culture makes a big

difference in attracting and

retaining great people.

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Observe what is going on around you:

What’s causing people to leave, or

compelling them to stay?

Listen to people who care about others:

If you don’t know what you stand for,

it’s difficult to create true connections.

Powerful tools to minimize blind spots.

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Purpose and Values

Make them meaningful

and understandable. Use

them to guide how you work,

communicate and evaluate

success.

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Nurture your sphere of influence:

Your interactions with people will

inform their interactions with others,

and others . . . .

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Transparency and forthright

communication engender trust

and commitment.

There is no substitute.

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Democracy in the workplace

promotes empowerment and

freedom, and minimizes fear

and control.

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A learning culture fuels growth

and stimulates development.

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How does your business succeed?

Teach people your business model

and how the company makes money. It will

enable them to better understand the value

of their contributions.

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Thank you.

Culture Matters: The Essential Elements of a Winning Organization

# F U T U R E M

RALPH FOLZ, WORDSTREAM

@ralphfolz

#FUTUREM

• What does it mean to have core values?

• Where do they come from?

• How do we go about setting them up?

Living them?

Just walk into a company where culture and values are held to a high standard and employee engagement oozes from every corner. Last year revenues increased by an average of 22.2% for the 2014 Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For.

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My Core Values Journey

Founder

Multiple Iterations of Core Values

(lots of lessons learned)

Non-Founder

Joined Mid-Stream

Mold / Build a Culture & Values

Acquired In

Mega Sized Company

Many Brands and Identities

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• Customer Acquisition for Small & Medium Businesses

in 20 Minutes per Week

• One of Boston’s fastest growing companies: 110

Employees today

• $25M raised to date

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Form a committee

(good cross-section)

Homework, Readings,

Moderated Session

Define our Core Purpose

Story Telling

Draft of Values,

Feedback, Repeat

Making Them Real

Core Values: An Approach

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Victor got approval for our Google+ vanity name (now +wordstream instead of a list of 60 characters). Larry asked him “Can you do a blog post on it?” It wasn’t in Victors objectives, and he has a ton to do, but he says “of course, I’ll take care of it”

Customer calls in, they only speak Spanish. Nefer speaks Spanish, but he is on another call. Erin does her best (she lived in Miami) and has a conversation with the customer and helps them out.

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CORE PURPOSE: To bring the power of search marketing, to businesses of all sizes

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• We incorporate our values into everything we do.

• Employee recognition system, reviews, interviewing, etc.

• We have created great collateral and reminders to drive home the values

Roll-Out

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More Examples

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• One of the most important things. Period.

• They can’t be fake. You are your core

values, your core values are you.

• They must be enforced!

• Engage your staff – at all levels

• Make them real – Live the core values.

Core Values