Lhe company is one big family. Indeed, the disputes are numerous there, in meetings as well as at the table: it happens that parent-bosses “cut off the food” of their children-employees by “throwing them out”, it happens that management allocates individual bonuses on results like parents distribute pocket money according to good grades. Come to think of it, the resemblance is uncanny, yet the family metaphor is still used in a positive way in business.
Some managers have even found a formula to give life to this filial bond that they would like to create: the “DNA” of the company. Its mission is to distinguish it in a universe where offices are alike. It’s about the house recipe, the story, the positioning, possibly the method – notably managerial – which explains why everything is going so well, and why this candidate who is hesitating should join the adventure.
DNA is inseparable from the employer brand: by putting down on paper (sometimes in a charter or on the walls of the head office) its commandments, the company reveals its deep, biological nature, therefore. While DNA is often compared to corporate culture, some specialists, such as on the BNP Paribas Blog, invite us to consider the two terms as complementary: culture particularly concerns managerial methods, and how work takes place in concrete terms on a daily basis. DNA, on the other hand, oversees culture in a grandiloquent way: this deoxyribonucleic acid is the “marrow noun” by François Rabelais (Gargantua, 1534), what hides behind the bone or the facade that everyone can see.
Kodak, a good example
The biological metaphor is a little counter-intuitive: if DNA is a substitute for the identity of a company, it means that this identity is determined, and that it is difficult to evolve… Changing the core business would mean betray his nature? Absolutely not, it’s natural selection! Species appear, and gene therapy is an option for the corporate family. If viruses have their variants, it is quite permissible for DNA to host mutations. To preserve the species, we must change to conquer new markets, without making the past too sacred: Kodak, a pioneer in photography that has fallen into disrepair in the digital age, is a good example of DNA that has not been able to mutate on time.
DNA therefore boils down to an overall vision, in good French, a guidelines (“guideline”), a motto (“currency”) which is expressed in values. The proteins that make up the DNA double helix are all “values” that make up the box’s personality. Most of the time, they fall under the meaning: ” Who are we ? At XXX, you will join a nice team [avons-nous déjà vu un recruteur mettre en avant l’antipathie qui règne dans son open space ?], who fights for a better world”. Audacity and innovation, often accompanied by delicious quotes as in this start-up : “Of course, there are risks. But risk is what spice up life” – Haruki Murakami. Social and environmental responsibility can finally enter into the coding of the genome.
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