The 3 A's

Many people like to talk about things in terms of A, B, and C. But here at King Price, when we talk about culture… Which we do rather a lot… We talk about the 3 As. Accuracy. Articulation. Authenticity.

It’s a process of accurately articulating your authenticity. Are you able to accurately articulate your authentic culture?

It’s a mouthful… So here’s a breakdown.

Defining your current company culture could be a challenging conversation. Your culture may not be what or where you’d like it to be. But the point of departure is when your teams can accurately articulate who you truly are… The good, the bad, and the downright ugly. Accuracy is important because there’s no point in sugar-coating the truth. It’s also important to be honest about your culture in action right now, not where you’d like it to be. This is not an exercise in aspiration. (Defining your ideal culture is another conversation altogether.) 

Articulation is kind of a fancy word for having the vocabulary – the actual words – to describe your culture. I always say that if I can’t articulate something so that other people understand it, then I don’t properly understand it myself. So feel free to use small words, just so long as they describe your culture as it is. 

As an example, I recently consulted a hugely successful 100-year-old business entity and, when I asked them what they attribute their success to, they replied, ‘our culture and our traditions’. This is a great answer in theory but when I asked what defined their culture, their answer was ‘our traditions’. When asked what defined their traditions, they replied ‘our