“Culture is King” – Robin Sharma
It is your company’s culture that defines its personality.
The culture behind your company helps others to understand what is important to you and what your organization stands for. Culture is, in a sense, your company’s life blood.
In a way it is culture that demands the success of a company and helps team members to grow and flourish. Without the influence of culture however the organization will originate its own.
Some time ago I had the privilege of reading ‘Delivering Happiness’ by Tony Hsieh, this was before I was thinking of hiring a “team.” In this book Tony not only talks about the importance of crafting and shaping good culture, but he also talks about the taste of the bitter fruits yielded from an abandoned culture as exemplified by his former company Link Exchange.
Bringing The Culture In To A Company
Forming a business that incorporates culture isn’t an easy task, it requires commitment and a considerable amount of investment.
When I realized that it was time to expand my company’s team I knew that I had to clearly define the “rules” first. I took 1 week off and worked on the first draft of Frontcube’s vision, mission statement and of course, our core values. I also hired a business coach and spent hours with him perfecting these important parts of my new team’s foundation. It took 30 days and a lot of trial and error to perfect a foundation that I believed was strong enough on which to build my team.
These clearly established elements means that when Frontcube moved to a formal office space, we had a clear set of principles that directed all aspects of the company. It was these principles that became our primary decision making framework.
Action speaks louder than words.
Without action, having a set of written or framed core values will not do anyone any good. As leaders in business and in life, it is our job to consistently share the vision, mission and the core values of the company with the team.
In his book Visioneering, Andy Stanley states that, we have to discuss the vision of an organization twenty-one times before people actually start to hear it. This statement emphasizes the importance of repetition in impressing your company’s ideals upon your team.
At Frontcube we decided to dedicate a fixed day and time each week to teach the team about our vision, mission and value system. In order to avoid repetition and boredom on the part of our team members however, we also built in leadership, business and personal development skills to uplift our team while also impressing our core values upon them. It was with this that “Leadership Wednesdays” were born.
How I Compile Content For Leadership Wednesdays
Every Wednesday morning I spend time preparing the content for our Leadership Wednesday meeting. Most of the time, this content comes from the podcast or the audiobook I listened during my morning jog or the book I read the night before. I take notes on this material, highlighting key points and associating them with examples from other books, our core value system and more importantly with my own life experiences.
The First Leadership Wednesdays
When we were just beginning our Leadership Wednesdays routine I decided to create presentation slides for each session but I soon realized that this was too time consuming and less interactive than I would like. It was then that I decided to use a whiteboard instead, both to explain and emphasize the principles, ideas and concepts at hand. So far this has worked really well for us. This just goes to show that you don’t always have to worry about the “fancy” things, rather, focus on the content you have to share. After all Jeff Walker still teaches his million dollar courses using whiteboard.
The Impact Of Leadership Wednesdays
I can clearly see the impact of Leadership Wednesdays on our company after just five months. Sure, here and there we missed couple of sessions due to tight deadlines, but overall the Leadership Wednesdays concept has become part of our weekly routine. You’d be surprised to know that our team members seldom take leave on Wednesdays – even if they have urgent work! Instead of missing our meetings completely our members get to their urgent projects after attending our meetings. Isn’t that awesome?
Above All, Remain Consistent
Whether your company or organization is big or small, I cannot stress enough the importance of consistently communicating the values of the company with team members. In order to build a successful company you must begin by building a solid foundation and as a leader it is your responsibility to guide your team members according to the values upon which that foundation is built.
To take our “Leadership Wednesdays” to the next level, we have decided to dedicate a full day to teaching a specific subject in depth every two months. Currently we are thinking about opening this to the public. More details on this will follow shortly in another blog post. Please comment below, if you are interested in participating!
Question: Do you have a similar setup in your company or do you have any great ideas as to how we can leverage our “Leadership Wednesdays”? We would love to hear your insight thoughts!
