Have you ever stopped to consider what makes your company unique? What is that persistent thread that pervades all and installs the central core to your mission and ultimate success (or failure)? Yes, there always lies something at the heart of every organization large and small! That something is your Corporate DNA … or “core values” for the less metaphorically inclined.
DNA, chemically speaking, is deoxyribonucleic acid, is located in the nuclei of cells and is considered the basic building block of the human body. It encodes the genetic instructions used in the development of all known living organisms.
For the metaphorically inclined, DNA is also used often to described the core defining principle of something like your corporate culture and ultimate path to success.
Take stock or your Corporate DNA by asking is your company primarily:
- Development driven: Your company is development driven if most every decision is based on the product you provide. You strive to offer the very best “widget” and all else takes second place to product related issues.
- Sales driven: Your company is sales driven if most every decision is based on revenue generation. The art of the deal and wining every transaction at any cost pervades your company mindset.
- Service driven: Similar to development driven companies, service driven companies base most decisions on the quality of service provided. Sometimes referred to as “customer driven” these companies will drop everything to satisfy customer, partner or supplier issues.
- Operationally driven: Once an organization achieves a level of predictable success and future growth doesn’t appear interesting (or possible) they tend to focus on operational efficiency. Every decision is questioned relentlessly to ensure business viability. Sometimes even “cutting” to profitability may become the solution; so typically operationally-drive organizations are run by the financial types.
- Marketing driven: In many organizations marketing is considered a “necessary expense”, a department that spends huge amounts of money to deliver un-measureable awareness, unfathomable market product/service requirements, and useless leads. But those companies that are marketing driven have recognized decision making that takes the best of all of the variations described above and lead with a balanced approach to understanding, delivering, measuring, refining and repeating to ongoing success.
Knowing an organization’s DNA will determine if that aligns with your personal values and whether or not that is a place you want to work. It will also allow you to better understand the decision process within your company so that you may better influence accordingly.
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