“If people are rewarded meaningfully, the entire organisation opens up and contributes”

Define culture clearly: Your culture is determined by the kind of business you want to build. If you want to be customer-centric, everything has to flow backwards from the customer. If you are going to be innovative, you have to allow people to fail often. It should be easy for employees to identify with. 

Communicate constantly: Once your culture is defined, nurture it through constant communication, through every form and direction – formal, informal, across the organisation and across functions. People need to be told with examples how you behave.

Stay consistent: When you run into conflict, don’t flinch the other way. That weakens your culture as people are watching your behaviour. If your culture is customer-centric but you back off when you have to spend on a customer, that is a clear signal that you care for profitability more than  for them.

Reinforce with action: Align everything around your culture and deploy rewards to reinforce it. If you want people to innovate and fail, then reward them. If you want to be boundary-less, then reward people for being non-hierarchical. If people are rewarded meaningfully, the entire organisation opens up and contributes. 

Facilitate adoption: Speed and informality matter a lot. Set mechanisms which allow employees to adapt easily. Encourage them to do their own thing and set up their own teams to instil team-work. Actions should follow words in an insightful manner.