By Dominic Ryan

Graham Hall, Director of MMM Joinery, called into the Go Radio Business Show with Hunter & Haughey with a timely question about creating and maintaining a healthy business culture.

Sir Tom Hunter used his own success story to underline just how important this is.

“When I was growing Sports Division what gave us the edge was our culture,” he said. “I wanted to promote the David and Goliath theme: us against the big boys. People were very proud, I hope, to work for Sports Division.

“How do you get that culture and how do you maintain it? That’s the job of the leader.

“First and foremost, the leader of the business has to be out there listening: really listening to what’s going on in their business so they can stop the politics, stop the back biting and all the stuff that kills culture, and instead promoting ‘us against them, us against the world’. Certainly, that was the thing that gave us the edge.”

Lord Willie Haughey agreed that, in his own experience, culture is everything.

“It’s very difficult, if you’re a PLC,” he said, “because things are very rigid. But if you’re a small or medium-sized business, basically if you’re a family business, success will be a knit culture within the business, more than anything else.

“I think you can create a culture and a business. I’ve seen people who may not be the nicest people in the world but completely understand they must have a different approach in how they treat their employees.

“They adapt. To get a culture where people feel they’re valued, they’re appreciated, I think is a huge help to any business.”