Here are a handful of questions that just about any business could answer:

1. How did you choose your location?
2. How do you set your pricing?
3. What is your marketing strategy?
4. How do you set staffing levels?
5. How do you set your compensation packages?
6. How are you different from your competition?
7. How did you settle on your technology infrastructure?

Here is one question very few businesses can answer:

1. How does your corporate culture contribute to your profitability?

Actually, that was a little disingenuous. A good many businesses can answer that question, but the answer is “It doesn’t.” Not because culture and profitability are unrelated, but because their relationship has been given no thought.

If you could make employees more productive by removing workplace conflict and confusion about expectations, would you do it? If your employees looked forward to Monday morning, would they hit the ground running and work harder? If employees enjoyed their jobs, would customer service improve? If your employees were excited about your direction as a company, would your customers notice?

If you employ human beings, then your corporate culture is important. It’s also hard. Harder than any of the items on the list above because people are much more complicated than a technology infrastructure. But if you don’t leave your location, pricing, or marketing to chance, why would you leave your culture to chance?