Our philosophy on culture is simple – a better culture is better for everyone; and every healthy culture possesses three dimensions: personal, professional, and potential.

Most businesses do a great job of building two of these dimensions, primarily professional and potential. This is what we refer to as a “two-dimensional” culture.

A company’s professional dimension involves everything day-to-day. This includes skills, training, facilities, equipment, resources, and anything else that allows employees to perform their jobs effectively.

The potential dimension focuses less on a company’s daily functions and more on its employees’ career paths. A successful and attractive business invests in its workforce by introducing programs and opportunities to mentor and develop leaders internally.

At the end of the day – the professional and potential dimensions of any good organization equip its employees with the tools and advancement opportunities needed for both to succeed.

This isn’t anything new to most business owners and leaders, frankly, it looks relatively fool proof on paper. After all, these things are primarily table stakes for most employers and job seekers – and yet, about 70% of employees worldwide report a lack of active engagement and satisfaction in their jobs.

So what’s missing?

Imagine the difference between a team member who simply does their job, and someone who comes to work every day with a genuine desire to excel at what they do. Not only does the latter add more value to the organization, but there isn’t a person alive who wouldn’t prefer to feel that engaged every day.

Sure, being equipped and developed professionally helps a workforce excel at their job, and the potential dimension provides incentives and reasons to perform well. Still, neither of these things really gives people the motivation to put their heart and soul into their work.

What we believe is missing is a third, more personal dimension; one that goes deeper than traditional training, development, or evaluation and promotion models. This dimension needs to connect people – not just through vocations or capability, but through a genuine interest and relationship between employer and employees. This creates a shared desire to succeed, and a unified definition of what success looks like.

We know that healthy, three-dimensional cultures don’t just appear. Instead, they must be built. Our model to help organizations and teams build their best culture involves laying a foundation and building from there.