Why Your Organization's Culture Matters (PDF)

"Reading Jim Heskett's book is not some vague exercise in academic idealism. It is a well-written, practical, compelling manual of how to build an enterprise that will endure for 100 years or more. You cannot afford to ignore it."

-John C. Bogle, Founder, The Vanguard Group, and author of Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life

"Jim Heskett has delivered yet another breakthrough in our understanding of how corporate cultures shape performance. If leaders take Heskett's sound advice to heart, corporate performance will improve and trust in business can be restored."

-Bill George, Professor of Management Practice, Harvard Business School; former Chair and CEO of Medtronic; and author of Authentic Leadership

"For those who might regard culture as an abstract, soft, perhaps 'hippie like' concept, Jim Heskett brings home its manifest value to both the organization and the sensibilities of its people."

-Herb Kelleher, Executive Chairman and CEO Emeritus, Southwest Airlines Co.

"The Culture Cycle inspires leaders to start with people and shape their organizations' cultures to drive engagement, inclusion, trust, innovation, and results. Jim Heskett has developed a new and valuable way to think about culture. This is a must read."

-Jane Ramsey, Executive Vice President, Human Resources, Limited Brands, Inc.

"Forget the squishy fluff; this book is hardcore, rooted in the numbers that drive margin. It shows the calculations...reveals the numbers for the 'report card' that predicts the future success of your company, division, or department...numbers every leader should know...and few do."

-Scott Cook, Co-Founder and Chairman of the Executive Committee, Intuit

"Jim Heskett's is the essential handbook for today's organizations that care about their people and are determined that theirs is an organization of the future."

-Frances Hesselbein, President & CEO, Leader to Leader Institute (formerly the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management)

In The Culture Cycle, renowned thought leader James Heskett demonstrates how an effective culture can account for up to half of the differential in performance between organizations in the same business. A follow-up to the classic Corporate Culture and Performance (coauthored with John Kotter), this book explains how culture evolves, can be shaped and sustained, and can promote both survival and innovation in tough times.

Drawing on decades of field research and dozens of case studies, Heskett introduces a powerful conceptual framework for managing culture and demonstrates it at work in a real-world setting. Heskett's "culture cycle" identifies policies, practices, and behaviors that are crucial to moving cultures forward and demonstrates how to calculate the economic value of culture through the "Four Rs" of referrals, retention, returns to labor, and relationships with customers.

Heskett's insights will be invaluable to leaders, professionals, and consultants in HR, productivity, training, and operations-and for anyone seeking to optimize organizational performance.

A crisis in organizational culture?

Inflated expectations, poor experiences, or both?

How cultures are born, grow, flourish, wither, and die

From founder to failure: understanding the lifecycle of culture

Measuring and tracking the effectiveness of organizational culture

Beyond "strong" cultures to "successful" cultures

Leading cultural change

What only leaders can do-and how they can do it most effectively