Company culture is more than lofty words on a hallway poster; it’s the values and behaviors that characterize a company and guide its interactions. Your company culture defines how you deal with challenges, change or conflict — whether it’s with employees, customers or other external stakeholders.

Greg Schwartz, Zillow Group’s chief business officer, sat down with Virginia Love, vice president of leasing and marketing at Waterton, and Greg Benson, managing director of marketing at Greystar, and asked them to share how their company cultures impact their multifamily world.

Here are five takeaways from their conversation for using company culture to achieve business success.

1. Get buy-in from everyone

To create and promote a culture that would resonate with both corporate and site-level employees, Waterton created a culture club and included leadership of every rank.

2. Involve senior leadership

Make sure the highest ranks of company leadership are visible, present and accessible.

3. Evangelize the culture from the bottom up

Push leadership principles from the bottom up — not mandated from the top down — so that every employee feels ownership in the culture.

4. Be authentic

Even high-performing companies can go astray, but when you create a culture that stresses authenticity, employees feel safe to have candid conversations and take accountability for getting things back on track.

5. Schedule regular check-ins

An open-door culture makes it easier to avoid surprises when performance suffers. Ask managers and supervisors to meet regularly with their direct reports and supplement that with larger team meetings. Create check-in points along the way to ensure that everyone is on the same page for achieving progress.

Check out the full videos for more insights into company culture.

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