A company's culture might best be understood in the answer to the question, "What's it like to work here?" For instance, can you tell the boss when you think he is wrong? What employee behaviors get rewarded? Ignored? Punished? What's really important around here, anyway?

Every company has its own culture, whether by design or by default. If by default, the owner and the employees may not even be conscious of their organization's culture, but it exists just the same. You may never write a memo that states a dress code or proclaims that you're open to new ideas, but any employee worth the space he or she occupies in your office or on a job site watches your behavior and listens to your words for clues to your priorities.

Business consultant Michael H. Mescon says organizations are built from the top down and from inside out. The quality of the employees you hire, the way you relate to them and to people outside the company, and the systems you establish for responsibility and accountability all communicate your values and expectations to the people who work for you.

There are visible clues to your firm's culture, such as the type of clothes your people wear to the office, the cars or trucks they own, and the office décor and furnishings. All are not necessarily good or bad, they just exist. The culture of your company simply exists.

Less visible but no less real clues of the culture that exists in your firm might include failure of project managers to keep each other informed about their projects. Why does it matter? For one thing, it limits cross-coverage in case of sickness or other absences. Both visible and invisible signs of corporate culture may operate on the conscious or subconscious level, and may be productive or counterproductive.

Here are other examples of the way culture develops within and to some degree defines an organization. If you average a ten-hour workday yourself, your project managers are not likely to drag in late or leave urgent details hanging when they go home for the day. If you wear pressed khakis to the office regularly, you probably won't see office employees in cut-offs and sneakers even if you've never mentioned such an expectation. If you usually reject your employees' suggestions that involve new challenges, don't expect them to bring in leads for projects outside the realm of what you have been building.

If you convey the policy that you want bills paid on time, you won't see your bookkeeper sitting on past-due vendor invoices. If you're cool-headed in a crisis situation (as you'd better be), your employees are probably going to examine how they might react in similar situations. I will talk more about corporate culture in my next blog.

Company culture issues, including your interactions with employees, subcontractors, and clients, comprise a major portion of the book, Construction Business Management: What Every Contractor, Builder and Subcontractor Needs to Know, by Nick Ganaway. Nick was a successful general contractor for 25 years and is a consultant in Atlanta, Georgia for contractors and other small business owners.