Verne Harnish

Why is it very important for companies to identify their core ideology, to keep those ideologies close at hand?

You must bring them alive. Not just have them - you may have them close at hand, which is a poster on the wall or a little plaque on the desk, but that's not anywhere near bringing them alive.

What are some of good ways to bring them alive?

They're not as critical to an organization till it gets somewhere north of 40 or 50 employees. When you're smaller, they have less of an impact. They really become important when you've got people running around the company whose names you don't know anymore, and you don't understand what the core ideologies are. Core ideologies are the keepers of the culture. And I can get lambasted for the simplicity of that statement. But generally speaking, they are representative of what's at the core of the company

When a company is not aligned or strays from them, it is usually at the root of all the bad stuff that happens in a company, from employee turnover and low morale to lack of focus to why revenues have come. The company starts to lose its way. In a positive sense, there are powerful tools for keeping everybody aligned in the organization. If I had an overarching idea that's even at the root of our Master Business Dynamics, it's that you can't do 27 things. All you can do is hope you get four or five things done. And you know what? You probably won't even get four of those done. You'd better know the one that matters. And by the way, that idea is hundreds of years old. It's not like it's any revelation, but it's interesting that there's something that gets fast coast companies in trouble, is they fail at the basics -- at the fundaments because they get bored with them.

So going to the core ideologies, the way you can use them effectively is rather than have 27 lists running around -- the list we use to hire people, what we do in orientation, what our performance appraisal process is, what we should be focusing on on a quarterly basis, the words we use in our ads -- you can take your five or six core ideologies and imbed them in your ads. Build the questions in your interview around those. Make them the foundation of the orientation process. Use them as the top-line categories for your performance appraisal process. Anyone you've got to reprimand or praise, refer them in some way back to one of those core ideologies.

What happens when a company finds that it's time to change those ideals?

The reality is they're very difficult to change. So the short answer is, if somebody finds they need to change one, good luck. Now, they are in flux until a company has gotten five to ten years old. They are discovered -- not defined -- by looking inside the company.

In your checklist you mentioned that it's a good idea for companies to tell the stories of employees who embody their ideology.

That's for both internal and external use. It's the notion of creating company legends. And one of the best ways to teach is through parable. If a company has a routine where they have a quarterly meeting or an annual meeting where they give out awards, we encourage them to recognize people who have exemplified one of the beliefs or ideologies. And then the story of what they did becomes a legend that then helps the culture carry on as it gets larger. That's your challenge -- to inculcate folks.

One section of the checklist also was called employee hassles. What do you mean by that term?

You need good employee and customer feedback on a weekly basis as you -- and in as timely and accurate a fashion as you demand from your financial numbers. My poster child for that was Michael Dell. When Michael was growing the company rapidly, I asked him how was he keeping the wheels on. And he said, "I do this little thing that people don't believe is that important, but it's really at the heart of our success." He made it a routine for his people to jot down problems, complaints, concerns, issues, ideas, and suggestions that they picked up from customers and each other. I use the term hassle. There are these kind of recurring issues that won't go away. Michael had it built into his culture to have those due every Thursday afternoon, and then he'd take Thursday evening and look at them and see if he'd pick up any hints about. If you want to find out about what the customers need and what the employees need, listen to the customers, listen to the employees. Michael didn't get everything fixed every week, but he got a little bit worked on every week and it made a huge difference.