11/06/2025
A healthy culture is a superpower
https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/business-building/our-insights/when-building-new-businesses-culture-matters
Besides that it is not a good cultural trait, not to explain Acronyms at least in a footnote, this article conveys some well-known, yet often ignored truths and supports them by some statistics.
All too often, company managers stare hypnotized, like a rabbit at a snake, at the figures of the last quarterly balance sheet as if their lives depended on it. Sometimes it does - at least their professional lives do.
These figures need to be optimized. However, in the medium term this can only be done in a very indirect way. The bottom line is the result of the action of the underlying forces, not the object of direct manipulation. Corporate culture plays a key role here. And it can neither be outwitted nor adjusted in the short term.
The last paragraph of this work by the McKinsey guys puts it in a nutshell:
“Authenticity in culture is non-negotiable. Attempting to fake or force a culture will disrupt operational efficiency and mar a corporate venture’s reputation. A genuine culture, anchored in the core values of the parent company, is essential for employees and also has a positive impact on the bottom line, ultimately helping the parent company build a fledgling corporate venture into a fast-growing business that delivers long-term value.”
TSR by the way in this context means Total Shareholder Return (TSR). This is meant as a little help as Wikipedia presents a non-exhaustive list of 26 long-text sources for TSR ranging from “Terminate-and-stay-resident program, a type of MS-DOS computer program”, via “"T.S.R. (Toilet Stool Rap)", song from Biz Markie's album I Need a Haircut”, eventually to “Traditional Spelling Revised, a relatively conservative English-language spelling reform”.
A healthy culture can triple a corporate venture’s TSR, but leaders must take intentional steps to build a healthy culture that creates such value.
