Month: July 2018

“A winning team culture isn’t built on motivational signs, slogans and rah-rah speeches. It’s built on people, values and high standards.” Allistair McCaw

Company culture is important but it’s priority can be easily lost in the day-to-day busyness of business. It’s like a marriage, where there are some important conversations to have along the journey, but the busyness of normal life can help a couple avoid them. It takes effort, planning and focus, plain and simple.

A key question to ask about culture is not only what you want it to be but what do you need to get to the bottom line? For instance, if the goal is to increase revenue year over year, what is needed to make that happen? If you make the culture all about the dollars, you are unlikely to actually get there. If you do, you are very likely to deal with burned out employees and high turnover.

If you emphasize rules, you will likely gain compliance but lose the creativity, innovation and passion required for a great company culture. Employee turnover will also be high. Leaders focus on what they want people to do rather than what they want people to avoid.

Shaping your company culture can start with a series of fill-in’s:

I want our company to be viewed ___________

I want everyone in our company to feel __________

I want my employees to feel that they are part of _____

I want us to believe in ________

Then there are these questions:

(1) Are our managers executive coaches and mentors?

(2) Are we dedicated to health and wellness for our employees?

(3) Are we open to learning new things?

I learned a formula from a mentor many years ago: Rules without Relationships = Rebellion. It works across all relationships, including your company culture. Building healthy relationships with your people is the foundation of a great company culture. It’s not a waste of time.

Start building your culture in the direction you want it to go. Take control today.

The #1 way to increase success – in the office, in the boardroom on the track or field, in the pool or gym, on the court, while coaching – is self-talk. Every day there are 60,000 thoughts and impressions going through your mind. Every day you have the opportunity to program your brain. You have complete control of the words you say to yourself. Know this, you hear everything you say, whether out loud or in your mind.

There is a strategy that works and I’ll share it with you in a moment. First, I have to revisit the foundation of all successful tips and tricks for success: self-awareness. Successful people are self-aware people. They know what they are feeling when they are feeling it. They perceive themselves IN THE MOMENT. They are aware. It’s this awareness that creates the soil in which the tips, tricks & techniques can grow and mature. Without self-awareness, these effective tools won’t last long.

So grow your self-awareness first (here are some Tips I’ve written that deal with self-awareness), then plant this trick.

What’s the self-talk trick? Name your inner critic. Give a name to that voice in your head that tells you you are worthless, no good, can’t do anything right and aren’t capable. Name it something funny like Sponge Bob. Name it Lucy or Ethel. Name it after your favorite cartoon character. Name it something that will make you chuckle. Then as you become aware of what you are saying when you are saying it, say out loud (it has to be out loud to work): “Bob, stop that!” Tell that critic he or she is not telling you the truth about yourself. “Who says I’m not good enough? Be quiet, Bob!”

A client earlier this week said in our session, “I’m probably wrong, but…” I stopped and challenged that. No. “Be quiet, Bob!”

Try it. Let me know how it works for you. I know it works for my clients who try it. I know it works because it works for me too!

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Check out this video I did for one of my sports teams, the Mason Manta Rays, as they head off to Junior and Senior National Championships starting next week. It doesn’t matter whether you are a business leader, an athlete or a coach. You all share something in common: you are human beings. The principles that work for athletes, work in business success too.