5.1.1. New criteria for enterprise performance

Today, an enterprise’s ability to foster creativity among its members is a determining element of success. The ability to innovate, create new concepts and produce ideas has become an essential competitive advantage. Therefore, we must offer another entrepreneurial model than the one that currently prevails in the majority of traditional organizations.

It is an economy of adaption where the ability to execute is what makes the difference; the source of added value becomes the ability to create new things (technological, managerial and organizational innovations, among others). The most ideal environment for innovation is a cooperative environment, as is verified by the artistic world or scientific research. What becomes a decisive factor in terms of entrepreneurial success is the ability to make one’s employees work together as collaboratively as possible.

5.1.2. A key factor in performance

We no longer aspire to merely conceive innovative products, but to become intrinsically innovative and capable of providing new solutions to every new situation. Innovation cannot only be a matter of know-how; it also has to be a matter of attitude. In this respect, it is no longer quantities of knowledge that are a deciding factor but the quality of the relationships between the actors with this knowledge, namely, the individuals of an organization. The ability to reconfigure these relationships in order to produce a new product or a new custom-made solution becomes a decisive factor. This collective intelligence is at the heart of winning enterprises’ culture. The challenge for all companies is no longer to instantly conceive the most performance processes for realizing products and services, but to create the right conditions under which the entire organization collaborates constantly and agilely, working to attain this quality.

5.1.3. Can an enterprise’s culture stifle progress and innovation?

Enterprise culture constitutes a coherent body that cements relationships between individuals and generates a sort of charter that employees must adhere to, under penalty of being rejected. This culture is just as strong as the enterprise is old, prosperous and dominant in its sector. The weight of this culture can become a true burden that prevents personal initiatives, complicating enterprise regroupment operations or acting as a factor of discouragement. We can take the French port industry and press as an example: having a very strong and very rigid culture, often reinforced by a long trade union tradition, they have not been able to adapt to changes in the world economy and have lost their leadership or are sometimes endangered. Conversely, enterprise culture must be an asset for the enterprises’s performance. Companies from very different sectors have understood this well. For example, Toyota by widely deploying the Lean Management, Essilor by encouraging employee participation in the company’s capital, or Google in developing the brand’s attractiveness to young people, have all succeeded in creating a culture that is strong but adaptable to their environment, which has contributed largely to their success.

5.1.4. Enterprise culture: a sustainable resource and a competitive advantage

Forming a sustainably innovative enterprise involves a culture that incites individuals to become actors engaged in their fate. It is a matter of considering individuals, as Eugénie Vegleris says: “Wherever there is a human, everything is possible, the best as well as the worst. It is by focusing on the best that we awaken the best” (Vegleris 2006). Thus, a culture of responsibility that takes us from hierarchical obedience to responsible autonomy is a true asset for the enterprise to succeed in competing in a new environment.

This culture must be founded on solid pillars:

• – A culture of liberty: respect for the individual in their choices, actions, diversity and granted confidence, far from the temptation of formatting and dominating them.
• – A culture of dialog: the promotion of healthy and transparent of perspective and exchanges building consensus.
• – A culture of responsibility: forgetting about dirigiste and infantilizing management based on “carrots” and “sticks”. We must strive to create an environment of recognition and pleasure that fosters involvement and creates permanent motivation.
• – A culture of collaboration: implementing “learning” approaches.

5.2.1. H3O

H3O agreed to test the questionnaire and evaluate its maturity in terms of sustainable development. The following rubric concerning the enterprise culture was provided to illustrate the method.

The test was conducted by the authors in the form of discussions with the president of the firm, whom we thank sincerely. The maturity evaluations obtained in this way correspond to perceptions, which would, of course, need to be confirmed by precise audits.

H3O is a very operational consulting firm which also has interim managers notably in the agri-food sector.

Enterprise culture is an important aspect of diagnostics done prior to all of H3O’s missions. It often reveals differences between managers’ perceptions of their enterprise and those of their teams compared to the reality that we perceive on the field.

This can cause problems with governance and the strategy’s translation, which H3O helps to correct.

Some managers, notably in SMEs, tie their name to a company by associating themselves with it. Culture allows for a way of characterizing the lifestyle within the enterprise. Culture sometimes deeply impregnates the enterprise and makes it difficult to transform with regard to new challenges for the enterprise and its employees.

The enterprise must foster the involvement of each and every one of its employees with recognition internally and within the ecosystem.

Taking culture into account allows us to naturally place humans once again at the center of the enterprise. Regardless of the position that they occupy, every person should be considered as an actor with competencies and able to address challenges originating from the strategy’s translation at the person’s level. There are fundamentals that must not be forgotten!