Your company’s success is not tied to whether or not you have a strong organizational culture because the strength of a culture is merely a measure of the degree to which that culture is entrenched in the norms of the organization. The relative strength or weakness of your culture is less important to your organization’s long-term success, than is the effectiveness of your culture. We have all experienced organizations with strongly held beliefs and fully normalized behaviors. But how many times are these cultures more toxic than intoxicating, perpetuating a continued pattern of dysfunction, ambivalence, and ineffectiveness rather than a pattern of integrity, engagement, and health? Instead of classifying cultures by degree to which that culture is rooted in the accepted norm in the organization, it is much more useful to classify cultures based on how effectively those norms reinforce organizational health and safeguard the organization’s long-term success. Much like an employee’s attitude, your organization’s culture is an intangible concept created by very tangible behaviors. In order for an organization to develop the culture that they need,the one that will enable them achieve their full potential, they need a structured way to develop their unique culture. Employee handbooks provide leaders, employees, and stakeholders with a very tangible way to understand expectations, values, processes, and procedures. The question is, do you have an employee handbook, and if so, does it do your culture justice? For more than 15 years, I have helped companies of all sizes, from startups to established corporations, define their culture through the effective us of an employee handbook. If you don't have a handbook, your employees can't really know what you stand for, and stand against. More importantly, without a handbook, you are opening yourself up to possible legal action from every employee who thinks they were fired without cause. In t