Camelot: The Top Three Characteristics of a Fabulous Culture

The first weekend of March, I was thrilled to be able to attend the Association of Change Management Professional's (ACMP) conference in Charlotte, NC (my hometown). It was a regional, IN PERSON event and, boy, were we all giddy to be together! Because change managers are few but mighty, it was no surprise that I ran into a bunch of people I knew from past lives as well as met some exciting new friends!

What does this have to do with company culture?

A group of us who used to work together at a consulting firm started talking about the best projects and companies for whom we'd worked, whether as external consultants or employees. Three characteristics kept coming up...

Integrity - the company's behaviors matched its words and promises to both customers and employees

Transparency - good or not-so-good news was shared throughout the company along with next steps that everyone, including the leaders, were going to need to take to keep the company moving forward

Trust - because of the first two, there was mutual respect and trust from leadership to staff and vice versa; staff trusted leaders to tell the truth and get their hands dirty to help solve problems and the leaders trusted the staff to take care of the company and its customers with the occasional "all hands on deck" situations

Certainly there are other characteristics of great culture, but when you've been part of one, it's hard to settle for less.