Are you hurting your business by resisting the changing American culture?

Are you hurting your business by resisting the changing American culture?

Many private businesses, especially those with a history of being family-run, have owners who appreciate the concepts of diversity and equality in their heads and their hearts. 

But when those concepts become reality in the form of different values, those same owners can greet diversity with cynicism if not outright rejection.

This tendency toward digging in and holding on to conventional business ideals of obedience, formality and autocracy are leading to some serious problems for some private companies.

Are you resisting change and hurting your business as a result?

Different employee pool

In some ways, this is a generational clash. Generations X and Y are becoming less fixated on differences in the race and religion of their peers.

Privately-held and family-held businesses are wrestling with how their cultures are being changed and influenced by more employees who look, think and act less and less like those who have worked there for decades.

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To me, the hot potato any owner faces now and into the future comes down to how he or she reconciles the business need for results with the respect that divergent cultures, morals and mindsets are now demanding.

How do you cool down that potato and create success instead? Consider these strategies:

  1. Start by understanding how respect is defined by both an owner and an employee. Understanding how this term is defined is critical, because respect appears to be a moving target with employees. Do they need to be given the latitude to pick the kind of work they want? Do they thrive in a less-hierarchical model and appear more creative within a team setting? If they're given these freedoms, do they see those as signs of respect?
  2. Similarly, how are you defining success? Owners tend to define success as achieving results, building wealth, and creating a legacy. Employees traditionally define success as meeting their boss' objectives, avoiding risk, and enjoying stability and recognition in their jobs. But success runs deeper than those definitions. Owners often wish to be seen by peers and their communities as benevolent providers of opportunity, plus as influencers who carry the family name forward through succession. Employees might feel more successful if they're included in decision-making, especially in a family-run company.
  3. Generations X and Y are known as the groups most interested in balancing lifestyle in addition to the more traditional definition of job success. Think about how this fits in with your culture and whether you're providing a framework for that level of success. Are you recognizing the social causes that are important to them and honoring holidays and cultures that are different than what you've celebrated in the past?

In the coming years, the challenges will not get easier for the privately-held business, particularly those that have operated in their own way with their own rules. If owners recognize that their need for success is greater than their need to do business the way it's been done in the past, their paths won't be as hard.

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