Marty Parker - Culture Connection: How Developing a Winning Culture Will Give Your Organization a Competitive Advantage

Advance Praise for Culture Connection

The best path to achieving a sustainable competitive advantage in a dynamic marketplace is through the development of an innovative and winning corporate culture. In building and optimising a leading culture, an organization can significantly differentiate their brand in the hearts and minds of their customers, employees and communities whilst delivering meaningful value appreciation for shareholders. Marty Parker has captured a compelling collection of corporate culture insights and learnings in this book, making it a great tool for leaders at all levels in profit-based, charitable and government organizations alike. Marty truly gets it that culture is the ultimate competitive advantage.

DARREN ENTWISTLE, President and CEO, TELUS Corporation

Marty Parker is the Wayne Gretzky of corporate culture. In his book Culture Connection, he builds a clear and credible case for the significance of culture as a primary source of competitive advantage. Marty has studied performance-based cultures and built a very successful business helping organizations identify human capital which contributes to a performance-based culture. This book is a practical and fascinating source for any leader interested in the art and science of building a performance-based culture.

PAUL ALOFS, President and CEO, The Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation

Marty Parker has interviewed a virtual whos who of North American industry and applied their collective experience to produce a book brimming with advice and strategies on how to build a winning corporate culture.

DOUGLAS KELLY, Publisher, National Post

Marty Parkers Culture Connection is a must-read for all leaders who shape teams for high performancebe it a small or large corporation,a department, a soccer team or a non-profit. Having been part of McKinsey, FedEx and, now, Purolator, I know first-hand how excellence starts with people and shaping a corporate culture. I wish I had had Marty Parkers nuggets and insights earlier. They are the perfect thought and action starters on shaping a world-class team.

TOM SCHMITT, President and CEO, Purolator Inc.

This is a very readable and illustrative book on what it takes to have a great corporate culture. The companies referenced in this book show how they not only engage peoples minds but most importantly their hearts.

MIKE WILSON, CEO, Agrium

Marty Parker has been a champion for the importance of corporate culture for many years, and in Culture Connection he brings together his knowledge and passion for the subject with clear evidence that developing and maintaining a high performance culture is, in fact, the only sustainable competitive advantage.

JIM TRELIVING, Chairman and Owner, Boston Pizza International Inc.

Marty Parkers work brings to the forefront the critical role that culture plays in driving business success.

JOHN CROCKER, President and CEO, HOOPP (Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan)

Marty Parker captures and articulates one of the least talked about but most important aspects of corporate success, and it is about time that someone treated corporate culture as a business metric rather than treating it as some airy-fairy concept. It is the foundation of any business success, and not simply window dressing. Not only does this book identify that fact, Martys step-by-step approach provides a terrific paint-by-numbers guide as to how to build the strongest possible culture while being able to recognize and ward off the threats to it. When business students are finished reading about present values, statistics and long-run marginal cost curves, they should stop, shut off the computer, breathe, and realize that none of that matters unless they understand the basics of this book.

LEONARD ASPER, President and CEO, Sygnus Corp.

Corporate culture, in fact any culture, is always a work in progress. Its a journey; and the trip is happening whether we pay attention to it or not! In Culture Connection, Marty Parker does a great job of reinforcing that, as senior leaders, it pays to give culture as much attention as we give strategy and systems. In fact, aligning all three is essentialas Marty says, either you control your culture, or your culture will control you. By extracting from real-life and current examples from his many years working with some of Canadas best organizations, Marty provides pragmatic advice for leaders on how to grow the culture we want. Culture Connection is a great addition to the literature on corporate culture that Im sure organizational leaders will find very useful no matter where they are on their corporate cultural journey.

MAURICE TULLOCH, President and CEO, Aviva Canada Inc.

Marty Parker has captured key insights into how corporate culture can be an instrument of resilience in chaos, or corporate transformation for improved performance.

SAM SHAW, Vice President, Natural Gas Policy Development, Encana

This is an exceptionally helpful book. Marty Parker has created a wonderful collection of quotes, examples and anecdotes from some of the most successful companies in the world. These stories will help you benchmark your company culture against the very best and help you get started on shifting your culture to make your company even more effective, regardless of your starting point.

TIM PENNER, Retired President, Procter & Gamble Canada

Corporate culture is the single greatest asset driving performance. I believe. I believe. I believe. Culture Connection convinces us of this truth, while at the same time, gives us, as leaders, practical, hands-on tactics to consider as we define and build our corporate cultures. It is compelling readingwell written, relevant, personal and helpful. Marty writes with such an intimate and personal style. This is a must-read for all leaders of organizations everywhere!

KELLY MURUMETS, President and CEO, ParticipACTION

In business, corporate culture is often not well understood and its overlooked. Once you understand how the power of great corporate culture can help your business you are well on your way to success. This book not only outlines what great corporate culture looks like, but it also provides insights from some of North Americas greatest business leaders on how they have used corporate culture to build their businesses.

MIKE CORDOBA, CEO, Empresario Capital

In my experience, which includes the turnaround of three historical department stores, I have learned firsthand, and concur with Martys findings, that there is a direct relationship between culture and performance that translates to profit.

BONNIE BROOKS, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Bay

Understanding how to develop a superior corporate culture is one of the most important activities of organizations these days. Marty shares the insight he has developed through his exposure to organizations with leading corporate cultures. His perspective provides the basic ingredients that will help you begin your journey to a winning corporate culture.

PIERRE-YVES JULIEN, President and CEO, Medavie Blue Cross

Organizational culture matters. In fact, a great one may boost your business performance by 600% according to the extensive research in Culture Connection. Todays competitive economic environment will always eat up firms with inadequate leadership, behaviours, intellectual capital and systems. The true inimitable advantage for business is getting that formula bang on. In this book, Marty Parker takes you on an enjoyable journey through the cultural landscape of some of Canadas top performing companies. You will learn unique insights from leading corporate leaders delivered in an eloquent package. You will definitely re-read this book time and time again. So for this reason, be sure to position your copy in a prominent spot on your bookshelf