Speaker spotlight: Culture comes from leadership

ATLANTA - Every company has a culture, whether they realize it or not, and those with stronger cultures are typically better performers, says Sharon Bock, director of marketing at Allegiance Group. HME News recently spoke to Bock and Bruce Gehring, senior vice president of business development at Allegiance, who are co-hosting a session at Medtrade called “Creating a Culture to Improve Collections" about the different types of culture and how they can be improved.

HME News: So what exactly is culture?

Bruce Gehring: We talk about formal and informal culture within organizations. Informal culture is how people interact with one another. Formal culture is your mission and your policy statements.

Sharon Bock: People often don't think they have a culture, but if they listen to how their employees talk, every time they say, “Well, that's the way we do things around here,” that is their culture and if management doesn't control it, guide it and lead it, it's another unknown they have to deal with while trying to make progress in the market place.

HME: Any red flags employers should look for?

Gehring: The biggest thing is when people dictate and expect others to follow the rules but don't follow the rules themselves, and typically it's leadership. Consistency and sincerity really has to come from leadership.

HME: How do you improve culture?

Bock: Communication is the biggest key. You've got to be demonstrating those values and coaching people, because a lot of times what people do is say, “OK, we're going to launch a new culture and this is what it is,” and then they check it off their to do list, and if they do that they're going to fail because people don't change their behaviors by being told to do something once.

Gehring: At the same time, if you have people who just aren't going to change, you can't afford to allow people to hang around and create that poison within the organization. Recognize who your A players are and who your C players are. You want to coach your Bs to become As, but if the Cs can't be coached, then you've got to make a change. And if you do, your employees will respect that, because if you don't address that, your culture will blow up and your top performers will go someplace else.

Sharon Bock, director of marketing, Allegiance Group

Bruce Gehring, senior vice president, business development, Allegiance Group

Monday, Oct. 21

1 p.m. to 2 p.m.

Session: “Creating a Culture to Improve Collections”