Establishing and growing a business within the corporate culture industry is no easy task. With culture such a difficult concept to define, it can be challenging to demonstrate the value offered by advisory services. The first step towards success comes from showing businesses the return on investment – in terms of profit and staff retention – that cultural clarity offers. For Jay Doran, it all starts with a start-up’s own cultural clarity. Here he shares his insider tips.
Jay Doran is the visionary mind behind the advisory firm Culture Matters, which he set up in 2016. Since then, he’s been working behind the scenes with CEOs and business founders to help them clarify their mission, core values, purpose, and goals. He freely admits that starting a cultural advisory business has not been simple. The hurdle, he says, is that the term corporate culture is often misunderstood and is a difficult concept to put into words. He says, “people hear the word culture and think of pizza days and sales incentives as opposed to competence, meaning, productivity and fulfillment.” He believes the key to start-up success is in providing clarity about what culture means. New businesses need to practice what they teach.
“The biggest challenge new businesses within the industry face is the level of responsibility it takes to embody great culture to teach it.” For Jay Doran, this means constant introspection and evaluation of his own working patterns and behaviors. He says, “Culture Matters is constantly aware of doing what we teach. A lot of education and nuance is compounded in the word culture, and the easiest way to sell it is to be it”. His advice to start-ups is to never compromise on their values, always believe in their vision and consistently show up to deliver successful outcomes for their clients. Jay says, “We are happy to sacrifice short-term gain for the long-term advantage. Specifically, we will not work with anyone who wants to manipulate their culture to abuse power or learn for the wrong reasons.”
Jay Doran is a man obsessed with culture. He is on a constant search for knowledge on how the world works, to understand others and himself in greater depth. His work to help companies clarify their culture is an extension of his personal mission to “live a life helping people think, act, and do in more beneficial ways.” In a corporate sense, this results in better staff retention and ultimately greater profits.
The margin of profit of a culture is in how staff interact with each other and with customers; more productive interactions equate to more growth and profit. New culture industry start-ups need to share this message while demonstrating great corporate culture themselves. Jay sums up his advice to new businesses with these tips, “Write with an open mind that challenges your thoughts and interview successful companies to seek patterns of behavior that work and don’t work.” He adds, “when you teach, always recognize that you can learn from your students.”