Connect Magazine Culture Issue | Page 4

FROM THE CEO T hank you for reading the previous issue of Connect. Now we shift our focus to transforming and sustaining culture to drive innovation and company results. Company culture can be just as important as marketing startegy and business plans. The impact culture can have on profit margin, individual employee perforJack L. Kopnisky mance, team dynamics, and President & CEO continuous process improveSterling National Bank ment are what I, and probably most business leaders, think about daily. A culture is a way of life for a group of people— the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next. This past Fall, I’ve invested extra time to consider what culture means within Sterling National Bank. I’ve witnessed that teams enjoy themselves more and perform at higher levels when they believe leadership embodies our company culture. As the leader of this company, in turn, nothing pleases me more than