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Strong Values + Small Business = Big Rewards

The Auburn Manufacturing Story

Johnna Major, SPHRPresident, Cornerstone HR Kathie LeonardCEO, Auburn Manufacturing Inc.

+Culture: Is It Important?“Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast, Technology for Lunch, and Products for Dinner” – Peter Drucker

Great culture is more than perks like free lunches, having a foosball table in the break room, or CEO’s doing cartwheels during employee meetings.

Culture = “The operationalization of an organization’s values” -- Edgar Shein, Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management

+Don’t Leave Your Culture To Chance Airbnb Co-Founder/CEO, Brian Chesky asked for

advice from their investors on the single most important thing they could do:

Don’t #@%* Up the Culture!

+The Benefits of a Values-Based Culture Positive, values-driven cultures allow

companies to nimbly deal with challenges and transform themselves

Hire and promote based on the behaviors that are most important to your company’s success

Elicit employee cooperation and commitment with simple values-based systems and processes

Easier to trust your employees to make the right decisions and push decision-making down in the organization

“Culture isn’t just one aspect of the game, it is the game. In the end an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value”.

Lou Gerstner, CEO, IBM

+The Cost of a Poor Culture Turnover

Recruitment costs

Temporary help costs

Training costs

Lower productivity

Less innovation and creativity

Poor customer service and customer satisfaction

Declining revenue and profitability

+Culture Challenges Through a Company’s Life-Cycle

Start-Ups Small, founders involved, don’t

feel the need for more formal systems and processes

Growing companies Layers of management being

added Feeling the need for more process

and systems but limited resources

Mature Companies Behaviors and elements of culture

may need to change to sustain growth or support a new direction

+Inspiration

Ann Rhoades, speaking at Maine HR Convention in 2010

Meeting Kathie Leonard at Women’s Leadership Forum in 2011

How to “Right Size” a Values-Based approach for small companies