One of the great­est assets that a cor­po­ra­tion has is often lit­tle under­stood or appre­ci­ated, because it’s an off-balance-sheet asset whose acqui­si­tion occurs slowly over time and is rarely man­aged or con­sid­ered as an asset. Cor­po­rate cul­ture is some­thing I’m com­par­ing to a bon­sai tree… its size belies its age, value, and com­plex­ity. One can also tend to for­get it’s like a liv­ing organism.

Wally Bock’s Lessons from the Rise and Fall of Delta Air­lines are instruc­tive in sev­eral ways for the neg­a­tive exam­ple set by CEO Ron Allen, who squan­dered the cor­po­rate cul­ture in pur­suit of “the bot­tom line.” Unfor­tu­nately for Delta, the way to the best bot­tom line is often a counter-intuitive one that takes best advan­tage of intan­gi­ble assets like cor­po­rate cul­ture. Among the sum­mary state­ments of Wally’s lessons from his exam­ple is this gem: