I plan to write articles, newsletters, and make videos under the Strategies for Small businesses and business culture topics.

This is the first article and the main focus is with regards to the two topics I have mentioned. For large corporations, there are several papers and consultants on this subject, but smaller companies fail to establish the right balance between management and establishing a success strategy.

Because they are focused on sales and revenue, many startups may not see the need of putting systems, strategy, and tools in place. I’ve written this first article to mainly persuade you that the most crucial focus of any small business, and one that is sometimes disregarded, is business strategy.

Sun Tzu in the book “Art of War” once said:

“Energy is like the bending of a crossbow and the quality of decision, the release of the arrow”. He was referring to the importance of making the right decision at the right time, describing how it can lead to either victory or defeat. I would like to add to that in saying “strategy is like the direction, aim and focus of the archer or archers”. 

I will refer to this quote in most of my articles in this series. I’d even go a step further and say, “Imagine an army or archers – the strategy determines when, where, and how they fight.” Even the strongest archers, with the most energy and determination, require guidance from the leader on where to aim their bow.

What do we mean by the term “business culture” and why it is crucial?

A company’s culture consists of its standards, values, and beliefs. Because corporate culture impacts how employees collaborate to achieve company goals, it is critical for companies to connect their corporate culture with strategies for small businesses.

As a result, corporate strategy functions as a road map, indicating what, why, and how a company will succeed. It’s a set of success plans, theories, and rules. In order to accomplish this goal, a company must develop and solidify its corporate culture.

Another quote by Sun Tzu: “He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout its ranks”. The General would have already chosen a battle, determined on the terms of the conflict, the amount of soldiers, and the battleground, among other things. However, on the day of the battle, the soldiers’ enthusiasm might make or break their prospects of victory. This is where company culture comes into play, as well as why it’s so vital.

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast” – is a well-known statement that means that businesses can have the best business plans in the world, but they will fail if their culture does not support them.

Real-World Statistics: Strategies for Small businesses

68 percent of leaders say their competitive advantage comes from their culture.

76 percent of leaders feel their culture can be changed and that they should do so.

A corporation without a high-performance culture is doomed to mediocrity, according to 81 percent of executives.

Challenges small companies related to Business Culture and Strategies for Small businesses

Due to being a small business owner myself for a few years, and I am regularly in the company of other small business owners, I am familiar with the issues that small businesses face due to the lack of a successful business culture. Below are a few examples:

• An employee’s productivity
• Employing the right people
• Reducing the number of resignations by new employees
• Expenses associated with retrenchments, labor laws, and HR

One of my acquaintances has had to replace 40% of their employees in the past 6 months, but it was only four employees who resigned and needed to be replaced. It is not a huge deal to replace four employees at a large firm, but for a small firm where every employee is on a single contract, this change might make or break the company before it gets started.

Corporate or toxic culture adoption

When small businesses hire new employees, they usually do so from a group of people who have already worked in a corporate or hazardous environment. Small-business owners must deal with personnel from many cultures, both positive and negative, and then integrate those cultures into their own.

There’s a quote that states, “you can’t teach old dogs new tricks”. To some extent, I agree. Some of these toxic cultures are irreversible, therefore making the right hiring decision is crucial when starting a small firm.

Spreading of business cultures among the small company

The second thing that frequently occurs is that people within your company begin to feed each other all of the company’s cultures. They share what they’ve learned and help to propagate different civilisations.

There was a story about two parrots that our Pastor used to tell all of the time. One was well-behaved and only sung church rhymes, whereas the other belonged to a pirate who cursed. The church took in the second parrot, which made many people uncomfortable because of the obscene words it would utter. In order to teach the swearing parrot a new religious song instead of swearing, the Pastor let the swearing parrot spend time with the good church parrot. After some time together, the good church parrot began to swear in the same way that the adopted parrot did. What the Pastor meant to accomplish backfired, and his excellent parrot became a swearing parrot.

It happens more frequently in small businesses, where a few bad apples corrupt your good employees.

What it takes to create a successful business culture

NB* These Strategies for Small businesses have been proven effective for every organisation

1. Define the core values:

This is labelled as one of the most crucial steps in creating a healthy business culture. Clearly define and communicate the business values to every team member. Put them on the wall and talk about them in regular meetings.

Even designing value awards could be a good idea; my daughter could recall all the school values even in primary school. This was not the result of being super smart, but because her teachers drilled values into her every day and gave rewards to the student who best represented the values. She was very proud when she won the value award, which was a steel-wire tree resembling a bonsai. The award was a simple gift, but she was ecstatic to receive it. The prize and award motivated her to attend school early, help the teachers set up their classrooms, and just be a good student.

2. Decide on the business agenda:

This is important and most of the time people don’t usually pay much attention to it. It is necessary for every company to set high level business objectives that are communicated to teams and individuals. To work effectively as a team, everyone needs to know what is expected of them and how they are performing.

My OKR application and tools enable business and individual objectives to be created and tracked in a collaborative, transparent, and convenient manner.

3. Choosing the right employees:

The answer to hiring the right talent, of course, depends on the company and the circumstances. Hiring the best talent is a risk for large companies as well, because there is a balance to be struck between experience, age, past cultures, business needs and affordability.

In order to minimise the risk, one of the things I always do is:

• Provide the potential interviewees with real work they would need to perform as part of the interview in order to judge the quality of their work. So even if they have to hand in their work days later, you get to see how they approach the task and how they deliver it.
• Get a quick feeling for their fit in your team by taking a personality test online with a tool like Crystal Knows.

4. Recognising and celebrating success:

Celebrate wins regularly, and if you can – share them with your team. Make performance bonuses standard and ensure that high-performing employees are rewarded. Again Sun Tzu said (and this is my last Sun Tzu Quote😊): “Therefore in chariot fighting, when ten or more chariots have been taken, those should be rewarded who took the first.” 

Make sure to reward the team who did great work, especially the one who took the first carriage. The more people do this, the better the workplace culture will be. Employees are more likely to give their all if they’re rewarded for going the extra mile.

5. Develop a culture of discipline:

In addition to the first point, discipline should be strictly enforced. Rewards and celebrations may not be enough. Discipline must be enforced, just as it is when raising a child or training a puppy. The way to do that will vary depending on your position and organisation.

However, it is imperative to keep in mind that certain actions have consequences. The culture of arriving late for lectures was widespread when I was doing my MBA, except for one course. It was a HR course, that was the reason. A minute before a class was scheduled to commence, the HR lecturer locked all the lecture doors. Just one minute late and you’d be locked out and not be able to participate. The students got the message and were always on time to his lectures. They still wandered in late to other classes that did not enforce this rule.

I hope you find this article on Strategies for Small businesses very useful. Find more articles on Blogs.Tati.Digital