Culture Trumps Strategy Ken Wilcox, Silicon Valley Bank Financial Group March 05

Question

Culture Trumps Strategy

Ken Wilcox, Silicon Valley Bank Financial Group

March 05, 2008

I believe that the most important things that a company can focus on are its strategy and its culture. I also think that if you had to pick between the two, that culture trumps strategy every time. I think that because if you have a great culture, your people will develop a strategy that will win. But if you don't have a good culture, even a winning strategy will not be useful. I believe that culture is the most important part of any organization. I believe that culture is what motivates. I believe that most people in most corporations in the United States are unhappy. That most people in most corporations in the United States. And this isn't just a belief. There have been studies done that would suggest that this is the case.

They devoted half of their brain to their job and the other half to thinking about how nice it would be if they work someplace else. And eventually, that opportunity comes. I think it's possible to have a culture that is both happy, meaning it's a nice place for people to work; and productive, it generates the kinds of returns that shareholders appreciate; and effective, it makes clients happy. And that's what we focus on here. And I'd like to try to describe briefly our culture, the keys to our culture. The first one is whom we try to hire and whom we try to keep. The approach to that is three-fold. One is we try to hire intelligent people. I truly believe that Silicon Valley Bank is like woe be gone, all above average. That's Silicon Valley Bank.

Number two is we try to hire as diverse set of people as we possibly can. The idea is if you have smart people and people with a wide range of experience, you've got a lot going for you. So we have over 50 first languages at Silicon Valley Bank. There are only 1,200 people. We got over 50 first languages. More than half the people at Silicon Valley Bank didn't ever work in a bank before coming to us. One of our most productive lenders by way of example is a concierge at the Four Seasons in Boston when I hired him, the various years when he's been the most productive revenue generator in the whole place. Our employees have interesting in diverse hobbies. And I can give you hundreds of stories, but I'll tell you one. And that is if you ever read "National Geographic" and you saw the tiger pictures, you know, those pictures of tiger faces and tigers who were obviously done with telescopic lenses, that was probably done by Suresh Gundappa, who's a full-time employee of Silicon Valley Bank but spends his weekends in the jungle literally photographing tigers for "National Geographic." So we try to have smart people.

We try to have people with a diverse range of experiences. And most importantly, we want to have people that can work as a team, people who know how to work together. Because being smart and having a broad range of experiences is not enough if everybody is an individual silo. Most of the problems that we face are complex and sophisticated. Complex and sophisticated problems can only be solved by teams. They can't typically be solved by individuals. Sometimes it's good to have a genius as a catalyst, but to put solutions into effect will still require the efforts of a team. So how do we get people who work together effectively? First of all, it's tricky because it's hard to tell when interviewing somebody if they're going to be good on a team, but you do your best. And then if they don't work out, you ask them to go work someplace else. But you encourage people through the culture you create and our culture has a couple of different aspects that I would mention.

One of them is that we put a huge amount of emphasis on what we call the guiding principles. And we really believe this stuff, by the way, meaning every company has guiding principles. Very few of them talk about them and practice them and base their evaluations of other people on them, and we actually do. The guiding principles, although they're quite detailed, can break down into two sort of categories. One of them is being respectful of other people. And the other one is if you have a problem, if I have a problem with Tom, I have an obligation to talk to Tom, not to the rest of you. Human nature is such. Most people, when they have a problem with Tom, pick one of you as a third party and talk trash about Tom. That's human nature. But we really insist that people work out problems together face to face.

Two other parts to this. One of them is that we use metaphors to describe what we're trying to accomplish. Our two biggest and most important metaphors are these. One is an orchestra. Silicon Valley Bank is like an orchestra. Everybody has an instrument to play. Every instrument is important. There are no superfluous instruments. Furthermore, when we all play at the same time and off the same piece of music, we produce beautiful music. But it requires that everybody plays and that they play simultaneously and that they play of the same sheet.

Different parts, but the same sheet.

Prompt Questions:

Question 01: From the above article, how is Corporate Culture/Organizational Culture explained? How are these related to the management theories of Kelly (2009:143), the McKinsey 7s model and Litwin (1992) change models? (5 marks)

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Quesiton 02:. How were explicit values statements, guiding principles, codes of conduct and other similar documents described on its contribution to the development of the corporate culture and its manifestations, based from the dialogue in the articles?

Explanation / Answer

Expandable culture is very essential for any organisation other provide the changes support to the understanding of the specific culture and its availability towards creating a better working environment for its employees.Corporate culture is very essential in defining and formulating a strategy for an organisation. According to the organisational culture, dependencies of strategies are changed. Corporate culture define the type of strategies which is needed for the organisation in the meantime. Different aspects of diversity as well as cultural and corporate needs of the organisation effects the formulation of an strategy. Decisions which affect the organisational equity and interferes in the organisations management are usually excluded from strategy formulation different people in the corporate culture also effects the formulation of the strategy and their effect is reflected on the strategies which are created.

Company's cultural environment as well as the employees moral are very important for companies growth. If a company is moral standards are hiring companies internal work structure would be very effective. Morale play a very important role in creating inter employee relationship which directly increases the company's overall efficiency as well as productivity. By introducing a well managed culture into your organisation you can easily increase the overall involvement of the employees towards the organisational success.
If a company is cultural environment is rich then the companies employ would work towards the company is benefit and they would also excel in their field. Excellence in any field is directly helpful in competition towards your competitor. By having better employee management system as well as cultural programs in your company you can easily improve the company's bottom line.
By maintaining vast cultural diversity into your company, you can easily enhance the overall productivity of the company. In an organisational culture integrity of the employees in maintain towards their workplace and defaulter commitment towards their organisation.
Code of conduct is one of the most essential part of any organisation and it is the backbone of the organisation to maintain diversity as well as efficiency and productivity of the organisation. Proper code of conduct directly helps in organising the company and providing a support to the overall structure of the company for maintaining diversity alien for the maintenance of the diversity as well as other cultural aspects code of ethics and conduct each and every organisation.
Carefully crafted code of ethics increases the level of involvement of the employees towards the organisation and it also provides information about the goals and strategy of the organisation towards the ethical approach. Code of conduct also helps in creating a discipline in the organisation and directly help an organisation to grow in a positive manner and to create a positive brand identity.
And also increases the overall support that is provided by an organisation to the employee. Code of conduct directly increase the level of implementation of different cultural aspects and disciplinary acts in the organisation by maintaining a proper structure.
Workplace ethics increases the level of happiness in the workplace which directly affects the overall efficiency of the employees. If the workplace is more ethical than the overall effects of the positive impact of the ethics and conducts increases and enhances the overall position of the organisation and also provides better working environment for the employees.
All in all we can say that carefully crafted code of ethics are one of the most essential parts of any organisation which is a necessary to maintain and to improve there workplace environment.

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