More Than a PowerPoint
While the term “culture” gets a lot of attention these days, I believe it’s one of the most misused and misunderstood terms in business. Many talk about transforming culture, but few “walk the talk.”
True cultural transformation must be fully committed to by leadership – and be more than just a bullet in a PowerPoint presentation or a sentence on a company website. Leadership must actively and visibly embrace change in order to foster credibility with employees. And employees must be a major part of the journey.
That journey needs to be authentic. When employees recognize a discrepancy between what is communicated by leadership and behaviors that are observed in the day-to-day environment, they lose their belief in the company's commitment and transformation as a whole. In my career, I have seen several companies face this issue.
At HARMAN Automotive, we have defined and advanced our target culture in a very purposeful way, starting with senior leadership and spreading to business units, team leaders, and ultimately, our people. We have done this through the creation of Cultural Identities, which we call our Superpowers.
Our Automotive Leadership Team took our Superpower visuals to a new level by incorporating them into a team-building graffiti session during an end-of-year workshop. That's me top center!
Say Hello to Superpowers
Superpowers aren’t just for superheroes. We all have special talents. As a global company, we decided to harness our collective impact through six Superpowers that guide our cultural transformation.
These Superpowers represent how we want to act with and toward each other, our customers and our partners – and they have become part of every major divisional touchpoint and collaboration.
