KSS July eKourier 2023

FEATURE

MESSAGE FROM SAM

L to R: Steve and Mara Klemich from Achievement Concepts, with Sam Kennard

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast” is a saying attributed to management guru, Peter Drucker. Obviously he wasn’t saying that strategy isn’t important, rather that an empowering culture is a surer route to organisational success. It is a key ingredient that will distinguish and differentiate a business.

T here is significant evidence an engaged, collaborative company culture correlates with sustained outperformance, strong brand reputa - tion and industry leadership. There are two challenges with organi- sational culture. First, is how to describe it, and the second is how to change it. In an already significant year, it is also 25 years since our first culture survey, the Organisational Cultural Inventory (OCI). It was a landmark year as it enabled us to actually describe the vibe of KSS. The first part of the culture challenge. This was the start of a journey where culture became central to everything we do.

entire business to find any practices, systems and signals that would be aggressive or defensive. Importantly, there was significant personal development efforts for people in leadership. Leadership growth was essential. So 25 years on, thanks to the OCI and great commitment from people across the business, our culture ideals are now firmly entrenched and part of our DNA. Our empowered and engaged culture differentiates us and raises the standards in all our 'moments of truth' customer interactions.

We obviously cared deeply about culture before this but the events of 1998 were cathartic and a significant re-set. As we know, the result in 1998 was a shock, revealing some distressing internal disquiet. The OCI provided a language and tools to describe culture. There was unquestionable commitment from me and the team for renewal. This is when we embarked on culture change. Every organisation is unique. There is no how-to guide for KSS to create a constructive culture. We made it up as we went. We used the feedback from the OCI and we took wise honest counsel from independent consultants (Steve and Mara Klemich from Achieve- ment Concepts). We unpacked the

Sam Kennard Chief Executive Officer

3 Kennards Kourier July 2023