{"id":883,"date":"2012-06-26T05:00:39","date_gmt":"2012-06-26T12:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/?p=883"},"modified":"2015-01-28T12:58:45","modified_gmt":"2015-01-28T20:58:45","slug":"company-culture-competitive-advantage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/company-culture-competitive-advantage\/","title":{"rendered":"Company Culture a Superman-Strong Competitive Advantage"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Company<\/a>In a very difficult environment for small vocational schools recently, the National Holistic Institute, one of the best massage schools in the country<\/a> where I am a co-owner, is surviving and thriving.\u00a0 A key reason behind the organization’s success is its unique, palpable company culture and mission.\u00a0 This was apparent at the grand opening ceremony last week at NHI’s new campus in Santa Ana, California — the photo nearby is of some NHI staff members doing the “whoosh” after the ribbon-cutting in Santa Ana.\u00a0 The whoosh is a unique cultural element mentioned below.\u00a0 The National Holistic Institute has been able to add campuses during the last few years even though I have received 6 phone calls in the last two months from massage schools in various parts of the country that are in distress.\u00a0 This is due to new regulatory requirements from state and federal agencies aimed primarily at the large, publicly-traded companies that is having a very negative impact on small schools without the resources to handle the increased requirements.<\/p>\n

Why is NHI so strong?\u00a0 To me, the primary reason is the strong company culture of the organization.\u00a0 As James Haskett of the Harvard Business School writes, “Culture can account for up to half of the difference in operating income between two organizations in the same business”.\u00a0 The National Holistic Institute had a very strong company culture when my business partner<\/a> and I purchased the business in 2003.\u00a0 It was one of the top three reasons we loved the organization:\u00a0 the other two were the people (attracted to the organization because of the company culture) and the systems in place that created a high-quality experience for students and made the organization more scalable.\u00a0 Fortunately, we have been able to avoid messing up the company culture and have even strengthened it a bit.\u00a0 At the companies that I invest in through Greybull Stewardship<\/a>, a key objective of mine is to help them maintain the unique elements of their company culture<\/a> and strengthen them over time.\u00a0 This is because a long-term, sustainable competitive advantage is usually through activities that a company does differently than its competition and company culture is a vital element to the differences that create competitive advantages.<\/p>\n

Haskett mentions several other things in his book The Culture Cycle<\/a> to think about with your company:<\/p>\n