Why small companies and start ups need to invest in creating a great company culture

Start as you mean to go on...and if you have already started then evolve into a business you can be proud of.

As a small business it is easy to get wrapped up in the mind set of I have got to make money. Yes of course you need to make money. You also need to create a working environment for yourself and your staff that you can all feel proud to be a part of.

There are over 7.3 Billion people in the world. That is a shockingly large number of people, that this planet needs to support. Of those people approximately 3.5 billion are known to be in employment. That's about 3.5 Billion people who work to earn a wage to support the other 4 billion in some way shape or form (charity, investment or through benefits).

In the USA there are about 320 million people, of which 123 million are in employment (38.44%)

I wonder how 3.5 Billion people can carry the responsibility of everyone else on the planet when their work environment takes so much out of them, emotionally and causes so much stress. Okay, so I have made the assumption that all 3.5 Billion people work in a toxic environment. This is of course not true, there are the the 54,000+ employees of Google we can discount from the rest (very dry British humour, apologies if this was lost in translation). This assumption is made on the level of political and cultural unrest I see each and every day in the papers that really does frighten me. If we do not learn to help one another and create an environment that allows us to express ourselves in a manner that is generative. We walk all over one another or stab each other in the back, just so we can be better off than the other.

The history of evolution states that in order to survive we must be the strongest in the gene pool or risk extinction. But guess what, we have now evolved into conscious beings, and thus can make conscious decisions, we have evolved from our "reptile only brains" of fight or flight. With advancements in the world around us, we can all make better decisions and find a way of helping one another thrive. By working together.

The same rules of evolution apply to the business world (as businesses are only the people who run and work for them). In order for a business to survive and thrive it needs to be better and stronger than its competition. And as we evolve our own consciousness, we can also create conscious businesses. A conscious business; that creates a space for its employees to feel valued, and also challenges them. A business that supports and encourages drive and ambition and leads with communicating with compassion.