Above the Line How to Create a Company Culture that Engages Employees, Delights Customers and Delivers Results

Above the Line: How to Create a Company Culture that Engages Employees, Delights Customers and Delivers Results offers all leaders a handbook for leveraging an organisation's culture to engage staff, increase customer satisfaction and streamline business performance. A groundbreaking work, this book reveals what it takes to achieve optimum results from your organisational culture without employing the use of external consultants. This organic, in-house approach to company culture transformation saves both time and money. Step-by-step, author Michael Henderson illustrates how to create a culture in which employees and leaders delight those outside the company?customers, shareholder, employees' families, suppliers and the board of directors?and anyone else who may benefit from an association with the organisation.

The book's proven models and ideas have been tried and tested with a broad range of of high-profile international companies. Expert author, Michael Henderson, a.k.a. The Corporate Anthropologist, has more than 30 years' experience, and a proven track record of working and consulting with organisations to enhance their workplace cultures.

• Reveals how to create an organisational culture that achieves desired results
• Puts the cultural transformation process in the hands of the people directly effected
• Smashes some of the established and costly myths about culture and how to work with culture

This important resource is written for leaders, managers and supervisors at all levels and across industries.

About the author xi

Acknowledgements xiii

Introduction xv

Part I: Understanding culture 1

1 What is culture? 3

2 Why organisations should take culture seriously 19

3 Aligning culture and strategy 33

Part II: Above the line culture 65

4 Above and below the line cultures 67

5 Below the line stages: dead cultures 99

6 Below the line stages: dying cultures 103

7 Below the line stages: disabled cultures 109

8 Crossing the line: a shift in perspective 119

9 Above the line cultures: stable 125

10 Above the line cultures: successful 131

11 Above the line cultures: excelling 139

12 A glimpse behind the curtain: consciousness and culture 151

Part III: Elevating culture 157

13 Cultural buoyancy devices 159

14 Leaders worth following 165

15 Work worth doing 175

16 Cultures worth contributing to 187

Part IV: Culture planning 197

17 Preparing to plan 199

18 Culture plan 1: purpose 203

19 Culture plan 2: identity 205

20 Culture plan 3: values 209

21 Culture plan 4: capability 213

22 Culture plan 5: behaviour 215

23 Culture plan 6: environment 219

24 Culture plan example 227

25 A final word of encouragement 233

26 Next steps 235

Bibliography 237

Index 239