Just PONdering…Moving Mountains with Corporate Culture

By: Walter Ohlmann, President

Every company wants to move a mountain. Achieving new sales goals. Increasing the bottom line. Designing a new product. Conquering new markets.

It seems that some companies excel in this quest. They constantly beat the competition in reaching their goals. It is often assumed that those companies who can marshall the greatest resources are the ones who achieve the most notable successes. But resources, physical resources, are usually just part of the story.

It is not the tangible but the intangible; not the visible but the invisible; not the physical but the metaphysical, which provides the force, which propels one company ahead of the competition.

We call that force a sense of urgency.

A sense, which activates the resources of a company. That provides a certain passion to all within an organization. That determines the role of a winner or loser.

You can’t see this sense of urgency but you can feel it. It is electrifying and energizing. Potent and powerful. It generates action. Commitment.

You can neither plan for it nor manage it. But you can encourage it. Applaud it. Reward it.

It can neither be delegated nor relegated. It must come from within and is woven into the very fiber of the organization

And though it may be born in the executive wing, it had better be raised and nourished throughout the company. A sense of urgency means nothing if it’s only a part of the corporate mission. But when it becomes a part of each employee’s creed, a distinct characteristic of the work ethic, your corporate culture can move mountains.


Penny Ohlmann Neimann


Leave a Comment
