Most businesses give such limited attention to their culture, focusing rather on product, service and operational attributes. However poor culture can make or break a business, no matter how good the product or service initiative is.

The term ’culture’ is generally misunderstood within many organisations; we use different terms that describe aspects or outward appearances but rarely do businesses understand their culture.   Only when we look deeply within an organisation, looking at each team/department, and each layer of management, do we truly see the culture.  The business might have a grand vision, mission statement, with objectives, and say all of the right words from the top, but unless the words are followed up with consistent action and implementation across the whole business, the culture will never reflect the words.  Culture, when filtered down, is simply what is accepted.  Culture can be different between departments in the same business because of what is promoted and allowed.

Successful businesses and leaders do not work in silos or have hidden agendas. Thriving businesses and leaders have a “one team” understanding, a common viewpoint and drive, full accountability, and work off the same plan to achieve overall success.  Beyond Your Horizon spends time with the organisation to assess the culture and determine the characteristics that lie beneath the surface, both positive and negative, that drive the business.

To understand culture is to not just simply understand what a business does, but we must also understand the how and the why.  How considers processes of engagement (with others through consultation), degrees of control, level of accountability, democracy vs autocracy, while why understands the motives and driving forces behind what occurs.