Big Topic #1: Unique and genuine corporate cultures
Since the 70’s the world has seen the rise of large corporations. Businesses have learned to be efficient and optimize their profits. But while growing and becoming more professional, many large organizations lost their agility, uniqueness and sometimes also credibility as places where people desire to work. Today, many young people are afraid of becoming “corporate slaves”, working long hours in highly political environments—confined to a cubicle doing standardized work without any true meaning. Companies spend huge resources hiring consultants to create bold mission statements and strategizing “hip” branding campaigns to attract new talent. Despite these efforts, actual values observed within these organizations remain the same.
In the executive’s dream world, employees fully believe in the company and are passionate about their work. In this ideal world, customers enjoy the product and the company feels good about achieving something meaningful while making money. This dream world, however, is not only possible, but is already seen in many young enterprises. At Sandbox, we observe increasing numbers of organizations that successfully create distinctive and positive work cultures. These are places where people want to work, where customers want to buy, and where shareholders want to invest.
Consider Zappos: the online shoe-store built around a culture of open-mindedness, dedication for creating unique experiences for their customers, and granting all employees full self-expression. Most importantly, their corporate culture is not just a rosy façade, it’s genuine. From the CEO down to the receptionists, everyone cares and practices these values. Zappos found a way to make people love coming to work while managing to turn $1 billion of sales.
In our opinion, positive and genuine internal cultures are the most valuable assets of any organization. If brand values and reality actually match, and if employees genuinely agree with these values, companies will be able to attract the best talent, retain employees more easily, unlock an enormous internal innovation potential, use grassroots dynamics within the organization and build meaningful relationships with their customers. It’s the age of the genuine brand.
