Category: Company Culture

The Features of Ethics In Finance

Ethics is around us in majority of things we do daily either personally or professionally. To improve my ethics through reputation, trust and commitment, certain policies needed to be followed to ensure I do not engage in unethical behaviours such as help fulfil the responsibility to my clients and employers, understand and comply with all applicable laws and regulations

Fulfil the responsibility to my clients and employers

Fulfilment of my duty to customers by being honest and integrity. As a moral individual, acting in unethical way would cause me experience fear that would affect my daily life as it can force me to engage in illegal activity, therefore, being honest will eliminate the issue. Moreover, being loyal to my customers and clients allows me to behave on their benefit instead of my own selfishness.

Understand and comply with all applicable laws and regulations

Understanding and adopting ethics in the work environment is crucial in making a suitable financial decision by knowing the risk and return trade-off and decide based on that policy, thus, will show my loyalty to my clients and bosses. In addition, organisations engage in majority of activities that has non- public information. As an individual who behave according to ethics, I will keep the information secured and not act own my own benefit.

In our case study of ‘Ethics in Finance’, few reasons were exploited on how ethics can help an organisation perform better which creates more value for their shareholders in a long term. However, not only ethics can help adding value but also eliminating value destroyer (Sinkey 2002).

I. Company culture

Ethics can build an organisation that most of his workers comply with all the rules such as not sharing private information with outsiders and separate work with their personal life. Business atmosphere should inspire workers to treat themselves ethically in their social climate. Th probability of agent problem happening is low when there is a good company culture as agent cost reduction will optimise long term shareholders capital by removing value destroyers.

II. Trust rewards

Through ethical behaviour, a business may develop a positive image that will help a corporation in a number of ways such as recruiting new clients, maintaining existing customers satisfaction and developing a strong partnership with the government.

III. Sustainability development

Since the introduction of new rules and legislations regarding penalties if a corporation activity has effect on the climate, culture or the surroundings, majority of companies has started fearing on breakings the policies as the cost being too high. As a consequence, if a corporation does well in the production of profitability, it may have a lower future capital killer and may increase shareholder equity in the long run.

Basic morals and standards that govern the actions of an individual and institutions in the society are referred to as Ethics (Mason, 2006). Lynch (2002) explains that ethics values allows individual and companies to easily differentiate between right and wrong and ultimately, to make educated and fair decisions. In the case study given of Ethics in Finance, Bruner exploits reasons on why ethics plays important role in both business and individual when in it comes to finance.

First, ethics allows a company to build a positive image to the society and individuals who they provide services (Bruner, 2006). An organization that has not engaged in illegal activities draws more attention to consumers and creditors. A workplace where matches with the consumer ethics, can be a dream spot for those who follows the same ethics. Second, Bruner (2006) explains in the case study that trusting relationships can be encouraged and build through principles of ethics. In the market, buyers are most willing to buy goods from suppliers and distributors who they feel they have adhered to certain moral standards and generate items of the highest standard. Furthermore, institutions that follow ethics and obide with laws and regulations attract more investors to invest their business as there is less risk than a business engaged in illegal activities.

Third, Bruner (2006) argues that ethics leads to creating and promoting good members and communities in the enterprise and community (Bruner, 2006). Maximum potential in business can be achieved by good management and managers, as they are effective in rapidly addressing challenges and formulating plans. Ethics aims to unite staff in a single company with common beliefs and thus not only encourages confidence, but also commitment. Hence, a team that practise good ethics builds a bond that allows them to offer their best by being efficient and effective in their work. Lastly, introduction of ethical values in an organisation tends to foster sustainability (Bruner, 2006). An institute with ethical values establishes an environment around workplace that are passed from a generation to another generation. Therefore, ethics plays an important role from helping organizations not engaging in unethical and illegal activities.

WorldCom case

One of the largest telecommunication service providers in USA, WorldCom was in the news for one of the largest corporate frauds in the twenty first century. Its CEO, Mr. Bernard Ebbs was accused of making false claims in the profit loss statement in the range of 11 Billion USD. Fraud generally results in loss of funds and the organization getting a bad name in the corporate sphere. Fraud occurring in WorldCom was against many of the ethical codes mentioned in General Electric’s code of conduct. The code of conduct asks for transparency, accountability and trust among the different branches of the organization. The major lesson from the WorldCom incident comes in the form of absence of a code of conduct for the organization that would have barred and prevented unethical practices.

CBA Case

Reversal of excess interest rates up to 34% on business overdrafts charged to thousands of customers of Commonwealth Bank was heard by the Hayne royal commission. The gravity of the issue of overcharging was also toned down and went unreported until more than two and half years. The bank was responsible for incorrectly charging up to 34% of interest rate and once the problem was identified, the bank took more than three years to refund the incorrectly charged amount (Frost, 2018). The bank lacked transparency, accountability, trust and honesty which resulted in a bad will for the bank and customers not inherently relying on the bank.

Adobe System Inc. as a Workplace to Any Employee’s Preference

“No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team”, – says Reid Hoffman. While teamwork is essential for an organization to achieve its goals, organizational culture plays a crucial role in a team and is the backbone of any successful companies. This is because there was an official certification in 2016, Adobe was recognized as one of the ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’ for the 16th time in Fortune Magazine. Therefore, I believe that Adobe Systems Incorporated is definitely a workplace to any employee’s preference.

Adobe Inc. founded in December 1982 and known until October 3, 2018 as Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically focused upon the creation of multimedia and creativity software products, with a more recent foray towards digital marketing software (Wikipedia, Adobe System Inc).

However, as one of the leading software developers of the world, Adobe has been praised for the strong company culture they have grown over the years. From its humble beginnings in 1982, Adobe has grown into a multinational company, with over 13,500 employees. So, what’s so special about Adobe’s culture?

Content of Company Culture

Innovation and Risk Taking

Companies with cultures that place a low value on innovation expect their employees to perform their job in the same way like how the company has trained them, despite focusing on improvement and creativity. On the contrary, companies with cultures that usually place a high value on innovation will encourage their employees to take risks and put efforts on the innovation part in their job performance. This is likely to provide the employees a platform to express themselves freely as well. For instance, Adobe makes no secret of the fact they have a very creative outlook when it comes to work. Adobe knows that fostering their employees creativity and giving room for experimentation is the key to an innovative workforce (Undercover Recuiter, Oct 29, 2015).

Why is innovative so important? First off, innovation helps to boost productivity. Since employers are given the freedom to express themselves, they may come out with unconventional ideas to solve the problems in new and innovating ways. As such, the quality of the works is improved, and works can be done at a faster rate. To give an example, in the working environment of Adobe Systems Incorporated is fun and inspiring, they will make some paints and creativity design on the walls itself to make it feel more like it not just a workplace but a place like coffee shop for employees to enjoy in their jobs with no judgements.

Besides, Adobe also invests in developing talents with training and mentorship for their employees. The company will challenge them with impacts and build their skills. Moreover, in order to have a maximum productivity from the employers, a fun and inspiring working environment is provided, for instance, the walls in the workplace are painted with creative designs to ensure a more relaxing working environment.

People Orientation

As a people-oriented company, Adobe offers perks like discounted gym memberships and tuition reimbursement, plus paid sabbatical and subsidies for commuters just for their employees. First off, good work is recognized and rewarded. Employees even receive patents for their ideas and are awarded bonuses for those creations at the annual banquet. Not only that, Adobe will be giving various recognition rewards to recompense their team members as well, they are offering patent award program to the employees, service awards and founder’ award, which is an annual global award program to recognize employees who consistently epitomize Adobe’s core values throughout the year and make an outstanding contribution to the company (Adobe > employee discounts and pecks > recognition).

In addition, Adobe does invest a huge investment in employee success and growth. How does Adobe do it? It is important to ensure that there is a return on investment (ROI). The actual training ROI is different for every organization and team, and changes depending upon the desired goals.

In short, Adobe values their employers highly as they commit to the wellbeing of the employers. Adobe’s wellbeing program is recognized as one of the key factors in establishing an award-winning company culture. By introducing wellbeing perks, Adobe’s businesses can all benefit from healthier, happier employees that are more committed to going the extra mile in their roles (azrights, September 2019).

Team Orientation

Team orientation represents the degree to which work activities are organized around teams rather than individuals. Adobe could be a role model to learn from. Then, you should probably look at Adobe productively and quality. How Adobe changes in performance management practice to work it more productive and quality. Adobe was evolving as a company and its practices had to reflect the changes: agility, ongoing innovation and team orientation. The People Resources leadership team would need to shape an alternative and to ensure that people are building their ability to give and receive feedback (Worldorwork Journal Second Quarter 2016, page 4,5).

Adobe supports the ‘Work Hard Play Hard’ mentality. The workplace is great, Adobe offers gym room, cafeteria and other amenities make it an enjoyable work environment. It feels more like everyone is working with life balance.

What really sets Adobe apart, though, is how its values communication across the company between departments. Regular team events, like a speed networking event, encourage employees to get to know one another. With the close relationship between the departments of the company, work definitely gets to be done efficiently and effectively. Not only that, Adobe has created a company-wide community for their LGBTQ employees. This can be a place for members of those communities to socialize and have discussions, and several Adobe employees even contributed videos to the popular ‘It Gets Better’ movement aimed toward LGBTQ teens (Enplug Blog, 03 AUG, 2015).

Aggressiveness

‘Aggressive’ can mean many ways in business, somehow Adobe is aggressive in following a competitor. Adobe always believes that a competitive mind is one of the strategies for winning in business. Both Microsoft and Adobe are the same executive software company in the global. While Microsoft and Adobe have largely been competitors thus far, Adobe has not ever tried to give up but it was trying other programs to emulate the competitors. For instance, Adobe improves in working on Photoshop for iPad with ‘aggressive schedule’ to add desktop class features. Adobe is so committed to making Photoshop for iPad as powerful as possible that it’s attracted more people’s attention to get it ready on an ‘aggressive schedule’ (Redmond Pie, Oct 22, 2019).

Another point about the aggressiveness in marketing. In 2013, Adobe switched to a SaaS model, offering cloud-based solutions for a monthly fee. This enabled unaffordable users use them at a lower price however long they needed them. Adobe had four million new subscribers after working in just 2.5 years (Single Grain, Case Studies). However, how they actually do something to attract the people in general marketing tactics. Adobe does a great job of carrying on a clean, minimalistic and gorgeous design applied on their homepage. The design is tidy and attractive, and clearly communicates what the brand is all about, it brings a good, unforgettable impression as well. Certainly, they provide good user experience and smart product acquisitions and other services to the users too. Overall, in 2018, Adobe annual revenue hit a record $9.03 billion and their market cap is $134.5 billion, it has grown significantly by having the best product.

Stability

Stability of a successful organization is the state or quality of being stable and having a consistent status quo in contrast to growth. As for Adobe, it is not easy to emphasize and maintain the status quo in the global field. Adobe has been earning a spot in the ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’ for 20 years with 16 certifications and other numerous rewards globally.

Adobe system is a digital marketing and media solutions company with a reported net revenue of $6.1bn in 2017, representing an increase in sales of over $1bn and revenue, asset portfolio size, and profits all reached a 10-year high (Gigabit, Apr 19, 2018). Until today, Adobe is ranked within the top 20 of global software leaders in terms of revenue and also ranked software-as-a-service (SaaS) revenues of Top 50 software companies based with $7.7 billion in annual revenue.

Conclusion

After looking at the organization culture and efforts that Adobe has done, it’s undeniable stuff that Adobe Systems Incorporated genuinely won the outstanding results in the global and achievements all the time. As the maxim goes, “if you get the company culture right, most of the other stuff will just take care of itself”, by Tony Hsieh.

Importance and Types of Organizational Culture: Analysis of Company Culture

Types of organizational culture

Team-oriented Culture

Team-oriented companies hire for culture fit first, skills and experience second. A company with a team-first corporate culture makes employees’ happiness its top priority. Frequent out-of-office team activities, opportunities to provide meaningful feedback, and flexibility to accommodate employees’ family lives are common markers of a team-first culture. The understanding of team-oriented culture is making employees happy, who will, in turn, make the customers happier. Team-oriented culture is beneficial for any customer service-focused company because employees are more likely to be satisfied with their work and eager to show their gratitude by going the extra mile for customers.

Safety Corporate Culture

Safety corporate culture is about creating or developing a sense of protection and the ability to anticipate organizational changes. As such, determining the various organizational factors such as employees in shaping safety can assist in developing a more effective safety program. Safety corporate culture enables employees to feel included in organizational changes, particularly those who prefer careful planning.

Horizontal Corporate Culture

Organizations with horizontal cultures are also referred to as flat organizations. The culture encourages flexibility by enabling employees to try out new strategies as per market research and customer feedback. This type of culture is mostly found within startups as it allows for a collaborative environment where everyone pitches their ideas.

For instance, some companies boast of an open door policy whereby anyone can freely approach a colleague, including management, whenever they have a concern or need clarification. Open communication supported by horizontal culture eventually promotes openness and trust in a company.

Conventional Corporate Culture

This is an old-fashioned approach to management and in most cases, the company’s bottom line is always the priority. These organizations will stick to the old ways of doing things with the aim of achieving consistency and results. The reliance on practice makes the uptake of new technology hard for these companies.

For example, companies where ties or slacks are mandatory, and the rewards are mainly monetary, are typical of the conventional sort. However, because of the changing business landscape, the conventional corporate culture is increasingly under threat such as from digital communication devices.

Progressive Corporate Culture

Progressive corporate culture is characterized by constant changes that often leave employees not sure of what to expect next. The major transitions may be internal such as the case of mergers and acquisitions. They can also be external in the case of changes in the market. Companies may need to adjust their goals and objectives to fit those of the market. Hence, the organization’s leadership have a critical responsibility to communicate to its stakeholders such as employees to ensure they do not lose focus.

The major advantage of progressive corporate culture is that companies have to be innovative and creative to meet the emerging trends. These eventually lead to the development of new ideas and improvements that benefit the company in the long run.

Importance of organizational culture

Attracting Top Talent

The current job market heavily favors candidates. The best candidates have the option of choosing where to work. They further have the advantage to get a view of the internal work environment of a company through platforms such as Glassdoor and can also connect with the company employees through social media channels such as LinkedIn. This shift, therefore, calls for companies to come up with initiatives that will appeal to potential employees.

For example, organizations need to keep the existing employees engaged by ensuring that they are productive or they feel part of the organization. When the employees are happy, they are more likely to become recruitment ambassadors for the company. Companies should therefore strive to win their internal clients over through culture given it is key in deriving job satisfaction (Alniack, Alniack, Erat, &Akcin, 2014).

Boosting Employee Engagement

Boosting employee engagement is vital for the long-term productivity of employees within an organization. Engaged employees display great commitment toward their work and have a genuine motivation to exceed their goals. Great company culture plays a major role in providing clarity on the roles of different individuals in the organization. When employees connect with the company culture, it gives their day-to-day tasks a broader purpose and they feel like they do meaningful work. It further gives them the energy to be at work, infuses a deep sense of ownership, and promotes employee loyalty.

Improving Employee Retention

Individuals want to work for organizations whose goals and objectives resonate with theirs. Building a better business culture that will continuously keep the employees engaged is essential in improving employee retention. Leaders and their organizations must strive to implement employee retention procedures or practices such as continuously providing employee training and support and providing them with guidance. When employees feel valued by their organization, they are likely to stay. The challenge is in making the employees feel valued, of which, possible strategies include empowering employees, rewarding them, and offering them job security.

Bolsters Employer Brand

Employer brand refers to a company’s reputation. It is mostly based on the organization’s products, employees, office set up and more. In an increasingly competitive labor market, bolstering employer brand is crucial in organizations. This is because it impacts how a company is viewed by its current employees as well as prospective employees and customers. The process of building a strong employer brand is strengthened by building a culture that assists employees to internalize the desired brand image and motivation to project a given brand to customers.

Shaping organization culture through leadership

The Role of Leadership in Defining Company Culture

Leadership is integral in defining a company’s culture. Leaders are the ones who make or break it because they are the ones tasked with making choices in the organization such as employee recruitment or engagement (Ssczepanska-Woszczyna, 2015). The role of leadership in defining company culture is about developing behaviors, systems, and processes surrounding the way things are done; ideals, goals, values, and aspirations set by leadership; and the underlying assumptions that will guide behavior.

The Role of Leadership in Hiring For Culture Fit

Cultural fit refers to the glue that holds the organization together. Hiring for cultural fit requires that individuals are hired based on the existing organizational culture framework. As such, the work of leadership is to define and articulate the organization’s culture, values, and practices. This process ought to benefit the company. For example, proper hiring decisions will ensure the minimization of employee turnover.

The Role of Leadership in Sustaining a Strong Company Culture

Leadership provides the basis through which culture can be used to empower employees. This should be to an extent where the employees are able to attain the company’s mission and realize the importance of individual contributions to furthering the realization of specific goals. In essence, good leadership ought to demonstrate the beliefs of the company whilst reinforcing them in such a manner that building and sustaining a strong company culture is attainable.

Analysis and conclusion

Analysis

Leadership is important in the creation or development of organizational culture. Leadership’s role in shaping organizational culture is something that has been identified extensively in literature. Leadership choices influence organizational culture outcomes, to begin with(Ssczepanska-Woszczyna, 2015). Additionally, the development of leadership can lead to the improvement of organizational culture, which is beneficial to the company in various fronts such as the realization of job satisfaction (Alniack et al. 2014), improving employee engagement, and building a strong employer brand. In essence, leadership behavior heavily impacts organizational culture and can either lead to healthy or bad company culture. The understanding is that leaders need to be adequately prepared to react to different circumstances and must be careful because they have the power to either promote a healthy or unhealthy organizational culture.

Conclusion

Leadership and culture are two interrelated concepts that can lead to organizational productivity or improved performance in the long term. Hence, it is important for leaders to examine their behaviors, skills, and thoughts, and apply relevant concepts in a bid to benefit from positive organizational culture. To this end, the organization that properly assesses the impact of its organizational culture will benefit more as compared to one that does not.

Aspects of the Impact of Company Culture on Employees: Analytical Essay

Corporate culture

Corporate culture can be defined as a symbol of an organization or personality; it’s what you believe and stand for, and what makes your company different. Company culture has to do with how employees, prospective employees, customers, and the public perceive your organization.

Corporate culture is powerful: it can affect sales, profits, recruitment efforts, and employee morale, whether it is good or bad. A great company culture attracts people who want to work or do business with the company. It can encourage employees to be more productive and more peaceful at work while reducing their income.

Let’s look at three aspects of the impact of corporate culture on employees:

1. Impact on staff performance –

In a strict culture, employees feel important. They enjoy at least some control over their activities, instead of feeling powerless. Whether it is working from home, choosing projects, or trying for a new role, employees feel important and can make decisions to reach a higher level of performance. Strong company cultures also provide employees with opportunities to grow. Offering promotions, skills development programs, or additional training can keep employees motivated – that is, and improve performance. When everyone is together, they will all work hard to achieve the goals of the organization.

2. Impact on employees’ happiness –

As the economy continues to deteriorate, the labor market shows a steady improvement. That means businesses can start to see huge profits, as workers search for greener pastures.

However, straightforward company culture can ensure that employees remain satisfied with their jobs and loyal to the organization. This can be very beneficial in a competitive rental environment. People are more interested in signing (and staying) with a company culture that fosters flexibility, which supports employee development, and provides a healthy work-life balance. Improving employee satisfaction with the field of a strong and supportive company can reduce recruitment, hiring, and training costs while improving morale and maximizing profits.

3. Impact on employee engagement-

By now, we have made it clear that a strong company culture has an impact on the organization, as well as on the performance and satisfaction of employees. Let us now examine the ways in which a company’s culture may affect employee engagement:

• Communication: In companies with good communication habits, employees know their ideas and ideas are welcomed. When employees feel that they are being heard, they do not have anger that can lead to absenteeism, bad behavior, and termination. The culture of the telecommunications company also leads to greater participation, creativity, and innovation.
• Security: Employee organizations emphasize safety. A culture of safety is being recorded, and employees are very attentive and involved in performing their tasks.
• Collaboration: Instead of the “we” approach, partner companies promote independence, decision-making, and collaboration. Employees are given opportunities to contribute, be put in positions where they can succeed, and provide opportunities to build meaningful relationships with managers and co-workers.
• Growth: The elements that promote employee development and growth give employees something to work on and to look forward to. Such cultures prevent the boredom and intensity of activities while keeping things fun and exciting.

In today’s competitive business environment, everything from sales to hire becomes a major challenge. One way to make everything easier is to become a company that people want to do business with and work for. Smart organizations know that strong and strong company culture is one of their most important assets.

Impact of Company Culture on Employees and Customers and on the Success of the Organization on a Global Scale

Behaviour observations were made at a multinational speciality retailer which sells products in the premium sector. I work here on a casual basis and made observations during shifts and in my spare time. Being an upmarket and speciality store, employees must have in-depth knowledge about products and provide excellent customer service. These high demands can put stress on employees, so it is essential to have a strong, positive company culture. During my observations, I observed how our company’s culture acts as a foundation to determine the success of our business. Leaders and managers in store contribute to the culture of the company which influences the motivation of employees to perform, resulting in increased sales and satisfied customers. I observed that the behaviour of leaders impacted on how my colleagues and I viewed the company’s ethical values and how motivated we were to perform. Because I observed this behaviour over several weeks, I could compare how positive and negative behaviour impacted on the company’s success and its culture.

Application to OB Content:

Organisational behaviour includes individual behaviour and group dynamics in a company. In our business, we tend to work independently but toward the same purpose which is to make our customers feel valued and satisfied with their purchases. Ultimately, we aim to increase sales for the company as it is multinational cooperation but within our store, we see the main goal as customer satisfaction. To achieve this, our store has created a culture where employees feel valued, respected and motivated. Happy employees generally achieve higher performance and greater sales which benefits the company, employees and customers. These observations were taken at an individual, group and organisational level as I observed how the individual behaviour of leaders influences group behaviour of employees and the whole culture of the organisation.

To understand the behaviour observed, I applied the concepts of company culture, leadership and ethics. Organisational culture consists of shared values and assumptions. In strong cultures, these shared qualities facilitate performance as they involve goal alignment, create motivation and offer control. Underlying assumptions are unconscious perceptions of behaviour that influence how we think and act, whereas shared values are conscious beliefs that employees have in common. Company values that define our culture are customer first, teamwork, passion and commitment. Artefacts are observable symbols that represent culture and can include stories and legends, language, rituals and ceremonies, and physical structures and symbols. Our company culture adopts rituals and symbols. A ritual our company enforces is the relationship between top management and staff. The store manager makes it a priority to visit staff daily and make appropriate adjustments or suggestions. This ritual reflects our underlying values and assumptions to maintain a positive culture. Employees are encouraged to speak up without fear of reprisal which helps employees gain confidence in sharing ideas. If managers did not allow open communication, we would feel disrespected and unimportant in the company. A newly employed colleague commented that she feels a sense of accomplishment and respect at work. She recognised that this differed from previous jobs as it can be challenging in a retail environment to retain a positive culture. With this knowledge, I observed that she showed the greatest performance and satisfaction when our manager showed public recognition of her efforts and encouragement through training. Following this recognition, the employee put greater effort into customer service and appeared to be more positive and take initiative. An observable symbol that defines our company culture is dress code. We aim to dress professionally and keep up to date with trends. We do not have a uniform which represents diversity and individuality (Wood, J. et al., 2016). Other physical artefacts such as furniture and minimal colour palette further reflect our professional and organised culture. This element of culture helps employees develop a sense of identity and gain a clear vision of the organization’s direction. It also encourages commitment to the company’s sense of mission, making it easier to work effectively on organisational goals. This vision presents a clear image to our target market which offers competitive advantage through building loyalty and commitment (Shajahan, S., & Shajahan, L., 2000).

Leadership involves influencing, motivating and enabling others to contribute towards an organisation’s success. Our business owner is both a strong leader and manager as she establishes direction for staff, gains commitment to this direction and motivates us to achieve the direction’s outcome (Aswathappa, 2009). Actions of top management impact company culture as they establish expectations. These are presented through culture which acts as a control mechanism that guides employees’ attitudes and behaviour (Nair, S., 2009). Our manager leads through effective communication, intrinsic rewards and maintaining company culture so employees have positive values to fall back on (Robbins, S. & Judge, T., 2015). Leader personality can be people and task-oriented and although our manager shows aspects of both styles, she grounds herself on a people-oriented approach. I observed that she shows employees mutual respect and trust, allowing employees the freedom to make certain decisions without consulting her first. When an employee informed our manager that she made a stock order as she predicted there would be high sales due to an upcoming event, our manager praised this behaviour as it showed initiative and forward-thinking. This responsibility and mutual trust motivate employees to reach peak performance. She also expresses concern for employees if she notices we are not performing to our usual standard. A colleague recently experienced a break-up and was struggling to give her full attention to customers, which our manager noticed. Procedures were put in place to assist this employee to ensure that her mental health and performance were supported. These observations are supported by the path-goal theory. In this theory, a leader adjusts their style to best fit a specific situation, while still achieving desired results and satisfaction (McShane, S., et al., 2016). These styles are directive, supportive, participative and achievement-oriented. Our manager adjusts her leadership style accordingly but being people-oriented, she tends to take a social approach. When an employee made the last-minute stock order, our manager used achievement-orientated leadership. This encouraged the employee’s behaviour, allowing her to reach peak performance by furthering her authority, possibly leading to a promotion. Our manager identifies small actions that show her an employee has potential and will set challenging goals and sales targets for them to improve performance. This confidence in employees motivates them to perform and meet their set goals. However, when an employee showed distress at work, our manager addressed this by using supportive leadership. Her friendly approach and appropriate suggestions to help resolve the issue made the employee feel respected and less stressed. By using a variety of styles, this creates a positive and encouraging workplace where employees feel respected and motivated.

Our leader emphasizes ethical behaviour, resulting in employee satisfaction, increasing productivity and reducing turnover, and attracts customers and employees. In our company, employees value top management’s commitment to assuring work-life balance and diversity in sustaining a positive, ethical culture in a high-stress environment. A colleague mentioned that although the work is demanding, we have fun doing it through the involvement of management. To sustain our company’s ethical culture, our manager acts as a role model for appropriate behaviour and communicates ethical expectations through training and a code of ethics that states values employees must follow. I observed that our manager introduced a feedback system where employees could anonymously discuss ethical dilemmas and identify areas in the business which they felt needed reviewed or improved. This open communication made employees feel empowered and respected, strengthening the company culture. It showed me that the behaviour of leaders is important to set a positive example to workers and shows how they are expected to act in a company. Behaviour within an organisation tends to determine the outcome of a situation whether it involves customers or co-workers. Ethical standards that a leader establishes sustain culture and can influence a company’s success. A company with low ethical procedures can be negatively viewed in the media, resulting in consequences such as loss of customers and reduced profitability (Robbins, S. & Judge, T., 2015). Our largest competitor at the time did not practise ethical procedures and received negative media publicity. Media reported that they had discriminated and harassed certain groups of employees. Because these values didn’t align with customers, they lost significant sales and had to close due to backlash and debt. In contrast, our culture is strong and supports high ethical standards which has a positive influence on employee behaviour and we can minimise ethical issues through open communication and maintaining culture.

These observations highlighted the influence managers have on an organisation’s culture and how this impacts employees and the success of a business. I observed that internally, our company culture affects employees and customers but externally it influences the success of the organisation on a global scale as well as the impact competitors have on us. As customers, suppliers and competitors interact with our company and employees, they understand our core values and ethics and how these form the foundations of our strong culture. This has resulted in positive outcomes for our company such as contented employees and customers and increased profitability.

Governance Structure and Company Culture: Case Study of Google

Google is one of the largest, most successful, and well-known media companies in the world, with more than 60.000 employees in more than 50 countries, owning and providing services like Gmail, Google Maps, Google Chrome, Android, of course, the Google Search and many more.

The history of Google

“The Google story begins in 1995 at Stanford University. Larry Page was considering Stanford for grad school and Sergey Brin, a student there, was assigned to show him around.” as it is written on the webpage of Google.

In 1995 Sergey Brin was already studying at Stanford University and Larry Page was thinking about studying there. In 1996 they started to work on a search engine project called BackPub. The name BackPub comes from the procedure how the software works because it ranks web pages according to how many backlinks they have. Larry and Sergey launched the software in March 1996 from Larry’s own Stanford home page. To be able to use and sort the data BackPub gathered, they developed a page rank algorithm.

While they were analyzing the results of BackPub, which consisted of ranked backlinks Larry and Sergey noticed that their software, based on page ranking produced better, more useful results than already existing techniques. This search engine continued to work from Stanford’s servers for a year. After this period, on the 15th of September 1997, Google.com was registered. Google’s name comes from a mathematical term googol. It is number. 1 followed by 100 zeros. “It is rumoured that this reflects the founders’ mission to organize the infinite amount of information on the internet.”

In August 1998 a check for $100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim was written for the yet not already existing company. The founders opened a bank account and continued working with the investment of Bechtolsheim. On the 4th of September 1998, Google was incorporated as a private company. Their first famous office was a garage in Menlo Park, California. After a year in 1999, the company moved from the garage to its new office at 165 University Avenue, Palo Alto. They needed to move because in 1999 they already had 8 employees and of course their famous team member Yoshka, the dog.

Later, Google got an offer of $25 Million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers and Sequoia Capital, because they have seen the potential in the company. After a year Google was already Yahoo’s search engine. Google’s results surprised all rivals. At those days the company’s only income came from licencing its technology, they focused narrowly on algorithmic search.

In the following couple of years Google went on with growth. They hired engineers, scientists, sales and marketing people and moved to their new headquarter in Mountain View, California, which is a huge campus called The Googleplex. On the other hand, during the years Page and Brin made many attempts to sell the company to Yahoo, Excite, and many other companies from the Silicon Valley for a price of $1 Million. As Brian O’Connell wrote, fortunately, for both the founders, all the employees, and invertors none of the attempts came to realization and Google kept it’s hold on the search engine market.

Google went public in 2004 and became one of the biggest media companies. It launched Google News in 2002, Gmail in 2004, Google Maps in 2005, Google Chrome in 2008, Google+ in 2011, and many other.

The reasons of success

As mentioned above Google has become one of the largest, most well- known and most successful media companies in the world, but how did it manage it, what were or are the factors of the success?

“Perhaps there is no greater testament to Google’s .. success than the fact that it has become a verb.”

In my view there are 4 main sources of the success, these are:

• Early recognition and efficiency
• The business model
• Continuous innovation
• Governance structure and company culture

Early recognition and efficiency

As the internet expanded the need for a tool, a proper search engine, which gathers and orders the information on the web grew as well. Prototypes and already existing search engines used keyword frequency as a base for their rankings which leaded to irrelevant listings and frustration among users. Using this software, one needed to read through an average of 10 finding to get to the thing he was looking for.

This problem was solved in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Their original business was sorting and the growing amount of information with algorithms. What is more, their software gave scores to the findings, given by specific criteria. So instead of employing human capital to review the results, they developed a page ranking system. This system preferred pages linked to each other. The more reference there was, the more important the given page was. This criteria helped to determine on which place the found page could be displayed among the search engine results.

It quickly turned out, that using this idea instead of word count is able to provide better results than existing software on the market. Of course, Google’s search engine went through and still goes through upgrades to give users more appropriate results. “Because it started strong and just kept getting better and better.”

The business model

As Mohit Tater describes in his article about the business model of Google, the important element of Google’s business model, that differentiates Google is the fact that it uses a multi-sided business model. It means that although Google provides a free search engine for usual user, it gathers uncountable data about almost everyone that could be used for business purpose.

Google also needs to generate income, just like other businesses. That is why it is focusing on advertisement. On the contrary, advertisements are not the only source of revenue. Google attracts visitors and sells advertisements places at the same time.

The business model works like this: Google analysis the user’s online behavior and uses this information. From this data Google builds up its value proposition.

According to Mohit Tater, there are 3 value propositions from which the business model is built up. There are different value propositions for different users, they actually follow the same philosophy, which is providing targeted advertising.

Value proposition number 1.

The first group targeted is webmasters or people who have a website. Google aims to help them earning money from their content.

Blogger.com is also provided by Google. This is a free platform for those who don’t want to have an own, separate website, but want to reach potential customers and want to be reached by others.

Another software for this purpose is called AdSense. AdSense also helps content creators to earn money. The working mechanism of AdSense is the following: It allows publishers to have Google ads on their website so that they could generate money from that. By using this software, the content creator becomes a partner of Google and receives a percentage of the revenue generated by his or her website. This partnership is beneficial for both Google and for the individual because Google can show ads on other pages not just on its own and the individual gets attention.

Value proposition number 2.

The second service is for advertisers. They are individuals with an own business, the need to be reached by customers faster, and the willingness to pay for it.

Google has the largest network for online advertisement and was able to catch the advertisement market, not like Bing or Yahoo.

The so-called AdWords software is responsible for this achievement. Advertisers, at any size, so start-ups, smaller businesses, and even huge companies can promote their service using Google ads.

Advertisers have the opportunity to customize their online advertisement campaign according to their plan of price and return. They can set keywords, whom, and where they want to advertise.

The targeting service of Google AdWords helps for demand and supply to meet. It ensures that only ads relevant results are shown.

Thanks to the multi-sided platform, Google have a major source of revenue. This source is advertising. The more ads are displayed, the more Google makes from advertisers.

But advertisers cannot just easily buy ad space from Google, they have to go through a differentiation process set by AdWords. This approach puts the company in a supreme position.

“AdWords looks into the popularity of the keywords and the narrowness level of the target audience, and then proposes a biding price per advertisement impression, cost per installation, and cost per click, ..”

Of course, with a higher search volume and a greater popularity comes a higher price, that needs to be payed for the service.

In conclusion, Google’s revenue from AdWords makes it possible for the company to provide free software, which is value proposition number 3, such as the search engine, Gmail, and AdSense the program that encourages creators to use the service of Google, so that it could succeed in online business, and of course enables all the products and services of Google to be improved continuously.

Continuous innovation

Improving and upgrading is crucial these days in the life of a company. Usually, it means keeping up with trends. This is not completely the case with Google. Although they are refining processes, adding new designs and option, they always pay significant attention to innovation.

As I experienced, while using and researching Google products, innovation plays an important role in the life of the company. Google stresses the importance of it and encourages employees to be creative. The result of this behavior can be noticed easily: technology that we can wear, driverless cars, mobile operating system, drone delivery system, and many more. As money isn’t the key driver of the company anymore, because of the advertising revenue, it can focus on creating new things. A usual process at Google involves creating a beta version of a program or project, releasing it, and constantly gathering information and learning from customer data and feedback.

How does Google achieve this?

Firstly, they heavily invest in research. Billions of dollars are spent yearly on research and development. Google usually invites scientists and university professors to its headquarters to give presentations or to work with the amount of data Google gathers. Google also invites small and young businesses, and start-ups to use the data and work with Google members in order to help them work out or to refine their ideas. Companies like these include Slack, Nest, 23andMe, and Walker, and Company. On the other hand, Google doesn’t just help these firms but learns from them.

And secondly, this attitude to innovation is present on all level and is reinforced to everyone. The best example of this behavior at Google is the so-called 20 percent rule, which means that employees should spend 20 percent of their work time with ideas, projects that they find interesting. (The rule will be explained in more detail later) This approach and this particular rule has led to the existence of Google News, Gmail, and AdSense. The attitude is the following: as long as there is possibility to benefit from the idea or to create something new the company will give it a try.

This mentality of Google is supported by its famous governance structure and company culture, which are in my opinion the 4th and substantial part of the success.

Governance structure and company culture

First of all, let me introduce both the governance structure and the company culture Google has and then go in detail with how they play an important role in Goggle’s success.

Governance structure

The following part about the governance structure of Google refers to Scott Thomson’s ideas. Google hasn’t got an unusual corporate structure other than some unique leadership positions like Chief Culture Officer and Chief Internet Evangelist. A board od director oversees the company gives instructions to the executive management group. The executive management group is responsible for departments such as engineering, products, legal, finance, and sales, but these departments are also divided into smaller ones.

Originally a corporate structure is built like this: there are usual employees at the bottom, supervisors oversee them, who are overseen by middle management and above all, there is the top management. This is called vertical approach, where decisions are made at the top and executed at the bottom, as Heather Skyler describes.

On the other hand, Google has a cross-functional organizational structure. This is basically a matrix structure with a degree of flatness. This flatness is a considerable feature of the structure, that supports growth and competitiveness. There are 3 major characteristics of Google’s corporate structure:

• Function for grouping
• Product for grouping
• Flatness

Function as a basis for grouping is used in the structure. This means that there are Sales, engineering and product management, and many other groups. The company also uses product-based grouping. This means that some employees are responsible for developing a particular mobile phone. And the third characteristic of the structure is flatness. Flatness of an organizational structure allows employees, teams or groups to get and share information across hierarchy levels. Thanks to flatness they can directly communicate with higher management.

This characteristic contributes to a more comfortable, smaller company feel because employees are part of the decision-making. This leads to the feeling and stresses the importance of being equally important in the success of the company. Good and clever ideas play a more crucial role than titles.

The governance structure of Google supports its company culture in achieving continuous innovation, which as already discussed is one of the key drivers of success at Google. The joint work of the corporate structure and the company culture helps to develop competitive advantages against other giant media companies like Apple, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Amazon.com, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat. That is why Google is a good example of alignment to achieve growth and success.

Company culture

Google hasn’t got a traditional organizational culture. This is partly because of the alignment with the governance structure but many other factors also play an important role.

Google’s corporate culture has 6 main characteristics as follows:

• Open
• Innovative
• Unique in hiring
• Celebrates failures
• Provides employees with a fun working environment
• Has its core values and mission statement

Google is open to new and creative ideas. Employees know that, that is why they feel free to share their opinions, ideas. The matrix organizational structure just helps to keep sharing information, in order to improve and to make ideas come true. This way the company also tries to motivate employees to challenge themselves and try to think over of the usual way. Of course, they get support in achieving these tasks. Google provides comfortable and warm ambiance working conditions like in a small business, that just makes it easier to keep openness and share ideas, even with Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

I already mentioned the 20 percent rule at Google. This is how the company encourages creativity and innovation, which is a key term in Google’s company culture and success. The broader definition of the 20 percent rule is the so called 70/20/10 rule. The working mechanism is the following: Employees are ought to spend 70 percent of their working time with the project the are currently working on. 20 percent should be spent with gathering ideas, creating new projects that are in connection with the core one. And in the rest 10 percent they can deal with any other new ideas, they have. This kind of freedom is one of the key forces behind new products.

Google gets about 3 million job applications a year, but only hires about 7 thousand, according to the data from July 2015. So, there must be something in Google’s hiring process that makes it possible to filter this huge amount of application and find candidates who fit perfectly in Google’s innovative, creative team. Of course, they ask some questions to estimate the candidate, but they look rather for candidates who are intellectual, fun, confident and ready to deal with and experience the unknown.

The acceptance of failure plays also a crucial role at Google. The attitude towards failures is the following: If you fail, but you share the failed project and experience with others, you actually make it easier for others not to fail. So, you basically save resources and time for the company. Making failures is an everyday phenomenon especially at companies like Google who are dealing with innovation and unknown. This attitude motivates employees to dream bigger.

Besides this attitude to failures, the media giant pays significant attention how it treats employees. It provides an uncountable amount of fringe benefits and a fun working environment. Employees are able to get unlimited food and snacks, massage, healthcare, fitness centre and gym membership, there are volleyball and basketball courts, bowling alleys and so on. What is more, Googlers are also allowed to take their dogs to work.

“Our mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” says the mission statement of Google. Core values held by the company and its employees are really important. Core values give the guidelines how to behave with each other and how to set expectations. Don’t be evil is Google’s unofficial motto. Although, an approach like this isn’t the proper one at a huge business, like Google but already knowing the company culture of Google I believe that employees could feel the difference between working at Google or elsewhere.

In conclusion, it is attractive to work for Google, because employees can feel that they are important, what is more, equally important. Happy employees work better and reduce the opportunity of turnover. Both of these characteristics lead to a greater success.

“As Larry Page himself said, .. … … … … …, ‘it’s important that the company be a family, that people feel that they’re part of the company, and that the company is like a family to them. When you treat people that way, you get better productivity.’”

To sum it all up, Google has special governance structure and company culture. It must be said that they are not organising procedures in the traditional way and are treating employees uniquely, but I wouldn’t say that this hole couldn’t be imitable. This idea brings me to the last part of my study, which is based on the question whether Google has to change anything in these areas or not.

Changes and future

Before beginning with changes let me raise maybe the strongest point against any major change according to Google’s behaviour. An important change would affect millions of advertisers, millions of other users, not to mention all the 60.000 employees working for Google. Now have a look at the other perspective:

Criticisms of Google’s company culture

From the description above it turned out that Google is a friendly and creative place to work. This creativity resulted many new products during the years. On the other hand, it must be confessed that these products are usually offered for free and contribute to the heavier use of the search engine but did not produced extensive new revenue.

This is just one of the potential threats why Google could need some changes but there are some more:

Could there be any other player on the market who could challenge Google’s dominance? The answer is yes. As I already mentioned it at the end of the part before there is the potential possibility that someone would try to imitate the strategy of Google. Although, it wouldn’t be the exact same service Google is providing, but when someone would offer almost the same it could gain high popularity in short time. Firstly, the switching for consumers wouldn’t be too hard, if the product has the quality and secondly, it isn’t so hard anymore to provide a service similar to Google. This way other companies could take this competitive advantage back from Google.

Google is following a trend. It is trying developments and improvements in all perspective of life and technology. It is possible, that a new idea would take the interest from all the other fields and change the aspect of the company. A change like this could have a negative effect on the reputation.

Both of the problems listed above could be solved by unpredictable decisions and movements. Google could pay even more attention to present projects and that way generate some more revenue from them.

Keeping Google googley means me keeping that type of leaderships which leads to success.

Let me end this study with the words from the homepage of Google:

“The relentless search for better answers continues to be at the core of everything we do. Today, with more than 60,000 employees in 50 different countries, Google makes hundreds of products used by billions of people across the globe, from YouTube and Android to Smartbox and, of course, Google Search. Although we’ve ditched the Lego servers and added just a few more company dogs, our passion for building technology for everyone has stayed with us — from the dorm room, to the garage, and to this very day.”

Reflective Essay on Warren Buffet’s Company’s Culture

Introduction

Warren Edward Buffett (born august 30,1930) is an American businessman, entrepreneur, magnate, investor and philanthropist

One of the most unbeaten capitalists of the 20th century. Buffet is the chairman, CEO, proprietor and largest stockholder of Berkshire Hathaway a textile industry, and continuously ranked among the world’s richest people.

HE was ranked as the world’s bountiful person in 2008 and as the third bountiful in 2011.

Buffett was born in Omaha, Nebraska. He developed an enthusiasm in business and investing in young age. The Wharton School of the university of Pennsylvania before transferring and graduating from university of Nebraska at the age of 19. Where he put his interest in his investment philosophy around the concept of value investing that was discovered by Benjamin graham.

He attended New York institute of finance to improve his economics background and soon began various business partnerships including with graham. He created the Buffett partnership after meeting Charlie Munger and his industry soon acquired a textile manufacturing industry called Berkshire Hathaway and assumed its name to create a modified holding company.

Unique key points.

• Warren Buffett is known for his cost effective and plain lifestyles.
• Buffets charity is the largest donation. Donation is approximately $30 billion, which is the largest donation in the history of the united states.
• The donation itself was enough to double the size of the foundation with 83% of it going to the bill gates and Melinda gates foundation.
• Buffets annual salary in 2006 was only$100000 and was listed among time magazines.
• 100 most prominent people in the world.

Literature Review

Value investing is the ideology was bought by ben graham and David Dodd when they taught the subject “investment principles” at Columbia business school in 1928. It was a subject that based on the concept of investment and speculation. Graham and Dodd critically explained the difference between these two definitions as how it affects people when it comes in managing their money and time in their life.

Warren buffet makes clear by giving feedback, eliminating stereotypes and identifying the truths are extremely significant. For this purpose, he has a circle of competence in place for example, he establishes what he knows truths, and their links to each other. Then he makes sure that he knows by a process of inversion whereby he tries to oppose his previous

Conclusion. This way he tries to blacklists stereotypes. He checks That he knows by looking for feedback from the result of his decisions following that communication and asking for the opinions of others are also critically important according to warren buffet. For example, he says as you are acquiring knowledge about industries in general and companies specifically there isn’t anything like first doing some reading about them and then getting out and talking to competitors and customers and suppliers and past employees and current employees.

Warren Buffett opinion, when an organization gains success, it should be celebrated with the whole staff including all employees’ states that victories must always be remembered, no matter how big or small they are. According to warren Buffett, failures of organization and their competitors are much more important and several lessons

Can be learned from these failures.

• Buffets company’s culture.

· “appoint well and organize little” was stated in his shareholder letter.

• A self-propagate culture.

· “you should shape your houses and then they shape you”

Culture consists of:

• Creativity
• Collaborations
• Hierarchical systems
• Competitions

Buffets corporate culture.

• Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Culture provide many advantages. For one it has remarkable capacity to retain a large variety of different businesses within a single corporate culture.
• “Our remuneration programs our annual meeting and even our annual reports are all designed according to Berkshire Hathaway culture and making it one that will drive and exile managers of a different bent.”
• In the case of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. And its subsidiaries, Buffett along with the founders and successive managers of those subsidiaries illustrate the process in action.
• The design of such a company culture is a feat of company’s governance, a framework in which benchmark of behavior and belief are more important than conformity manuals and company structures.
• People who are assign with the wide self-rule end up feeling a greater degree of leadership than they would if they are subjected to strict oversight and estimate.

Buffets leadership style.

• Democratic
• Self-empowered
• Servant leader
• Inspiration

· Level 1 (Opportunist)

Youthful years of carpetbagger business ventures, cajoling others underperforming in school, stealing.

· Level2 (diplomat)

Early college years socially hard to do and affecting immature effort to fit in with others and build confidence by studying and practicing dale Carnegie material to improve communication, corporate training, salesmanship.

· Level 3 (expert)

Implements grahams value investment techniques many years of strong immeasurable use of logic mathematical intelligence and rational temperature.

· Level 4 (achiever)

Astonishing success with buffet partnership, creating average annual rate of return (ROR) for investor of 24% over 13 years.

· Level 5 (redefining)

“go it alone” period of investigating having a peaceful life increasingly involved in community of emporium integrations various relationship and interested to create Berkshire Hathaway.

· Level 6 (transforming)

Shinning in a wide variety of business and investments including a managerial role that saves Solomon in the 1990.

· Level 7 (alchemical)

Death of first wife, uncoil of fortune, donating most of his income to gate’s foundation in respect to his wife.

Warren buffet doesn’t go after the regulation and rules, but his resistance has certainly paid off. The warren buffet leadership style is as dangerous as it is prosperous.

Berkshire Hathaway world’s 11 largest company, makes $210 billion each year, there are few people better than warren buffet that you could turn to for a business guide.

Warren Buffett owner of Berkshire Hathaway is one of the best investors of all time. His leadership style has made him the second richest man in the world with a total worth of $75.6b. Likewise, his company is worth an additional $423b.

Warren Buffett is a transformational leader. Unlikely other CEOs, Buffett rarely manages those below him. New Berkshire Hathaway staff are given independent status soon after arriving at the company are not forced into meetings about results, leaving them with more time to manage their businesses.

His essential task of management is to put conditions and methods of operation so that people can reach their goals best by putting their own effort towards industry objectives.

Encourage folk with respect and show them mercy and trust.

Build an emotional bond to the firm and make them feel appreciated and connected to the company.

Make the employees to be identified in the company and allow them to create a more powerful commitment.

He does not value natural decision-making but a rational approach that encourages flexibility and open-mindedness.

He has the ability to influence situations and values personal responsibilities and accountabilities.

Theoretical background

Warren always follows his own advice. When he wants to hold a stake in a company, he likes to read all its annual reports going back as far as he can he looks at how company has bought up by its directors and what are all its strategy is. He put his own time to investigates thoroughly and acts predetermined and continuously. Once he has purchased a portion of shares in a company, is opposes to sell. He looks for long term goal.

His affection for long term investment is reflected in another of his motto you should invest in a business that even a fool can run, because some day a fool will.

He doesn’t believe in businesses that confidence for their success on every employee being excellent. Nor great people help much when fundamental of a business are bad.

He says that when good management is brought up into a fundamentally bad business its position of that remain intact.

Assign the right people to the right jobs.

His company, Berkshire Hathaway (textile industry and parent organization), owns 63 companies. He writes only one letter in a year to the directors and CEOs of these companies, giving them vision and mission for the year. He never holds the meetings like BOD, AGM or calls them on a regular basis.

You are what you are.

Even though one of the richest men in the world

He drives his own cars everywhere and does not have a driver, security or escort people around him. He never travels by private jet, although he owns the world’s largest private jet company.

Always think how you can accomplish things economically.

He has given his CEOs only two rules.

Rule number 1: do not lose any of your shareholders money and don’t disappoint the shareholders of the company.

Rule number 2: do not forget rule number 1.

Set goals and makes sure people focus on them.

He does not mingle with high society crowd. He remains always down to earth. After he gets home is to make himself some popcorn and watch television.

Warren likes to say that a good business is like a kingdom and you’ve got to think new idea every day, to make the management growing the size of the moat. Great business is not all that same, and finding them is hard. Unusual factors combine to create the moats that shelter certain companies from some of the rigors of competition. Warren is superb at finding these franchises.

Warren installs strong and efficient managers in the companies Berkshire Hathaway he owns and influences to leave them engaging much alone. His basic proposal to managers is that to the degree that a company spins off cash, which good businesses do, the mangers can trust warren to invest it tactfully. He doesn’t encourage

Managers to modify. Warren buffet excepts managers to concentrate on the businesses they know well so that warren is free to establish

On what he does well investing.

Communication

• Buffets financial communications.
• Use numbers to season the point you serve.
• Use analogies and metaphors.
• Be honest and transparent.
• Use facts to put things in realistic content.

Motivation.

• The process of awaken and strengthen a goal-pursuing behavior.
• Warren encourages his employees by implementing the theory Y

Discussion

· Public praise.

While other companies refer to their staff entirely. Buffets company names specific people within its annual report to investors. This public praise helps to motivates staff to go above and work in the organization with zeal and helps to achieve companies’ vision and dream.

· Admits his mistakes.

As warren Buffett one of the top businessmen in the world, Buffett clearly not committed much wrong during his time in business. However, he always be happy to admit his mistake. When he has made a bad decision. He said that his unwillingness to sell his Tesco shares was a mistake, he also took the blame and name for the decline of jet rental company NetJets.

· Be humble.

Berkshire Hathaway was notably absent from the teach sector where even simple day traders were creating huge wealth creation almost overnight.so the company Berkshire Hathaway’s CEO warren buffet was humble with its investor and always cared in returning wealth in term of money to its shareholders.

· Love what you do.

Listen to any interview of warren buffet and you will hear how eager he is about his business he assure that this will give anyone in business a competitive edge. He always gives suggestion to young people love what you do and life is to short to stay in job you hate.

· Learn how to communicate.

You’ve got to be able to communicate in life and its enormously important. School, to some extent, under emphasize that. If you can’t communicate and talk to other people and get across your ideas, you’re giving up your potential.

· Choose your business associates wisely.

Warren Buffett says that be with people better, genius than you. Pick out people whose behavior and thinking are better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.

· Don’t micro manage.

He strongly trusts that great leaders need to mark and obtain great skill. He also lets them get on with it and not often interfaces so that they feel empowered by this independence the lessons for future leaders are clear. Have less meetings and call your CEOs and managers less often. In order to have or create new ideas for the growth of business.

· Plan for the future.

The main job of a board of directors is to see whether the rights people are running the business in right way and achieving the corporate goal and to be sure that the next generation of leaders are recognized and ready to take over the business tomorrow.

· Transparency is highly appreciated.

Bill gates remembers buffet for many reasons even on such a tactful issue as taxation, gates praise him because his transparency is crucial even though it might not be in his own best interest transparency at every level pays off fair in every business field. Employees are tired of unexpected and there is growing demand for conveying the truth.

· On taking risk

Never test the depth of river with the both the feet. Never step in two business at same time there is high chance of losing the money at same time. Invest in one business and from profit of parent organization invest to other business.

· On earnings

Never depend on single source of income create second source of income by investing in good business.so that rate of return will be high…

Conclusion

· Start from the scratch

As I learned from warren Buffett was every business started from scratch. No business got best fund in olden days. His initial investment was from sale of chew gums which was small income sources. This source was best investment for him to be great investor He started his business with Berkshire Hathaway by buying single share later he converted one into many.

From this we will come to know that he is transformational leader his transformation has impacted as great leader in this century.

He used to suggest for investors to create wealth and important points connected to it.

Don’t lose money.

Don’t forget rule NO 1.

We should never invest in business that you cannot understand.

We should always look for long term goals and not short-term goals. Short term goals can give success but in future it can ruin the business. Always warren Buffett suggest for long term goals

An investor should buy the stocks as if he is buying the company. He is true inspiration, motivation and stimulus for us. His story is best example for us.

Be like warren.

These warren buffet quotes are nearly all common sense. He does not claim to be smarter than anyone else he is just sticking to common sense and some core principles when he invests. We should all be like warren.

Why Communication Is Important in the Workplace: Essay

A workplace is made up of various teams, each with different personalities and characters. For a company to run, it is essential for there to be communication between individuals of each team and team-to-team communication. If there is clear and effective communication, then the company objectives will be met more efficiently, and hence the business will become more successful.

Clear communication is when two parties talk and listen to each other simply and concisely. Effective communication is when what was communicated has been done in a way that results in both parties sharing a good understanding of what was said, and then acting on what was communicated to them. To ensure clear communication as a manager, it is important to have a good plan of what they are going to say, perhaps in the form of bullet points, so they are confident that they will cover all the points that they want to address. So, overall, the communicator must choose their words carefully. If this is done, and communication is clear to individuals of a team, then they will understand what is asked of them and their job role, and therefore they will know exactly what they have to do in order to meet the organization’s targets. Additionally, to ensure effectiveness, it is important for the communicator to manipulate their volume, pitch, and tone of voice so that their audience is engaged, because the more engagement with the talker, the more of what is being said will be absorbed and understood. In addition, a manager’s facial expressions and body language must match what they are saying, otherwise, it looks as if that person is being dishonest. People will not listen to or follow someone who is saying one thing and acting another way. In a workplace, if the manager is preaching to do something according to business standards but they themselves are acting inappropriately, this does not set a good example, and you will find work members start to get relaxed and don’t care or follow the company’s standards and protocols as well. When there is no mutual respect between the parties, there is bound to be conflict. So, how someone presents themselves in the way they look, listen, move, and react to someone else is essential to successful communication, as well as the words that were said. If the team lead communicates clearly, concisely, accurately, and with full confidence, they come across as a person that has confidence, knowledge, and presence, and therefore it is more likely that the team will respect them, come to them for any problems, and follow their lead. So, therefore, having a good team leader is important to achieve the company targets.

Clear and effective communication is needed in the workplace so that work colleagues can connect with the manager and understand what they are saying. If something is communicated well, it comes across as that person understands what they are talking about, so it is more likely the person who is receiving the information will have confidence and trust in that person, creating a trustworthy bond between these two people. If the members of a team don’t feel comfortable enough to go to someone in higher authority for help, then the tasks won’t be completed and to the standard that is expected because the team is scared to ask for help, so it is very important for the team lead to communicate well. Also, if a team lead is consistently and clearly communicating with everyone and they are doing it effectively by using good body language, smiling, having eye contact, and listening to their team members, then it will come across as that person is genuine and is a nice and friendly person. People work for people, and if there is mutual trust between the team, the business will thrive. On the other hand, if a team lead was rude, did not talk to anyone, and was fiddling whilst someone was trying to communicate with them, there won’t be any motivation for the team members to work hard because there is no mutual respect. A positive and friendly work environment ensures individuals work harder for a manager that they have trust and respect and a good relationship with, ensuring a more thriving and successful workforce. Building good relationships between work colleagues is important in a workplace because everyone is there for a shared common goal, and the friendlier everyone is to each other, it creates a more positive work environment where people will work to their best potential and engage with their other colleagues. Also, by knowing what everyone is doing at work or having people there that you know you can approach, everyone can therefore work to their best ability. This leads to good job satisfaction and a sense of self-worth and belonging, ensuring that the person will want to stay in the company and work hard for it. Good relationships keep morale up in the workplace where things can usually become quite stressful. If work colleagues did not get on with each other because of unclear and poor communication, then there wouldn’t be a happy positive working atmosphere, and everyone will be in rivalry with each other rather than working in unison like a team should.

Another reason why clear and effective communication is important is so you can express what you really mean. For example, a team leader has a responsibility to inform and educate. This can only be done by having good communication. If the team lead is clear with what they are saying, then the team members are more likely to understand because everything is said quite simply and to the point. If the team lead is not clear enough, then they haven’t achieved the job role of a team leader because they are not relaying to the team what is needed of them, and as a result, the organizational targets may not be met. The individuals of the team may come to their own conclusions about what was said, and therefore everyone may work differently from each other, which can lead to conflict. Also, if the team lead uses effective communication via different methods, for example, keeping the colleagues entertained or being persuasive and giving incentives for achieving targets, then it is more likely the team members will retain the knowledge rather than just simply understanding. If team members understand what is said at a team meeting but do not remember it the day after, then the whole meeting was pointless, and it leads to the whole team once again not having a shared common goal, and this can create conflict between individuals.

Another reason why is it important to communicate clearly and effectively is to navigate through challenging situations at work. For example, if a work colleague can clearly and concisely explain to their team lead what is leading to their underperformance by speaking about facts more than emotions, then it is more likely that the team lead will empathize and understand the work colleague because the individual is being realistic and understands that they have a responsibility towards the company. It is already hard to deal with a challenging situation, but if someone can address this as a concern by communicating, then both parties can work to some form of conclusion. This can avoid any conflicts within the workplace environment. Sometimes, if a problem is kept quiet, it can build up to a point where it leads to frustration and annoyance within a team. Ultimately, it may lead to one of the team members leaving. So, to avoid this and any misunderstandings and to put less pressure on the business, it is important to communicate clearly, so that if there is a problem, it can be rectified.

And a final reason why effective and clear communication is important in the workplace is because it increases innovation. The more conversations that are had between team members at work, the more likely they will be stimulating and will spark creativity within some individuals. By communicating clearly and effectively with each other, it is more likely that the team will collaborate and come to a decision much more easily and quickly than a team who do not talk to each other or talk aggressively with each other. By having more engagement within a team, it builds the team up, and therefore it helps with making key decisions, which then leads to an improvement in company performance. Successful communication leads to teams working in a way that is necessary for the business to flourish and thrive, and furthermore, without innovation, the company cannot grow, it becomes stagnant, and it is less likely to continue to be successful.

To sum up all of the above, clear and effective communication is extremely important in the workplace, as it contributes to the creation of a favorable environment in which the company’s goals will be achieved more effectively, and therefore, the business will undoubtedly be successful.