Your CRM Is A Great Driver for Your People-Centric Culture
I hear this all the time, we have a great culture at our company or (fill in this blank) has been the catalyst to the culture in our organization.
When I hear this, I like to ask, how did your culture become so great and/or why (fill in the blank again with what you used above) did you start this and who started it, you or those within your company? I ask this because this is an indicator of the authentic value. It also gives me insight of where the motivation for the culture came from – was it leadership driven, employee driven, a mix, or something else? For something like culture to be engrained into people on a team serving others, there has to be a secret sauce. Something that doesn’t go away if the people change, leaders change, customers change.
To be a people-centric organization, there needs to be something sticky. I use people-centric because every person related to the organization plays a role – employees, customers, prospects, vendors, board members, and family members to these people. Frankly, I think the secret sauce, like most secret sauces, should be and can be something simple. In our organization, we rely heavily on our CRM systems and the integrations so that we know everything about everybody all of the time. Our business is people. Our secret sauce is the data-driven environment manifested in our CRM system, strategy, and policies.
Why is this our secret sauce and is that weird? Let me share three important elements related to our CRM practice, our people, and our culture.
- We don’t not share information within our company. Our whole team has insight to everything. This includes EVERYTHING. It was great one day when one of our engineers said that he loves working with us because regardless of whether work is going well or not, he knows also how well the day is going for others because he can see that days work activity and always find something to brighten a tough day. That is culture.
- When a deal has begun or when a deal has landed, we ring the bell! Even before COVID, we have always worked as a company that is remote. We have been conducting Zoom calls for years. We have tried about all of the video conferencing platforms too. When we are together, we talk about our opportunity wins and losses. We talk about the day and we study our dashboards. Even though we all have different roles, we know each of us depends on the other for success for all of these we serve. No one has a bigger role than the other. We all have critical roles to fill.
- There is a big difference in organizations where the leaders say, “we drive our culture because we have developed a great compensation plan” versus “our culture grew because/was created by (fill in the answer)”. The difference is one culture was driven and the other culture was grown. I sincerely believe that the sustainability of a culture runs beyond any individual if it is grown. To that, your CRM is the glue. It’s the well for all of the information needed to do your job and do it well. This is information used to shepherd your team, having confidence that others can suggest and lead while having access to the data needed to do this.
I am a huge fan of growing your organization’s culture. I know we are in the CRM business. Even if we weren’t, CRM would still be a big factor in our culture because it is a people system. People will come and go while your data about your people will be steadfast and increasingly important as time marches on.
I encourage you to check out these other resources from our website to know more about us and who we are. Let me know if I can help you.