Your culture is very important. Yet, many business leaders fail to actively cultivate the culture that they want in their business. Few things can destroy a business faster than having a negative culture. The culture of your business is crucial to your ability to accomplish your objectives of success. Culture refers to the general working environment, the attitudes of your team, the approach your team takes towards serving your customers and working with each other. Whether planned or not, the culture is established by the actions, or lack thereof, of the leadership of the enterprise.
In Good to Great, by Jim Collins, he talks repeatedly about having the right people "on the bus". This is a core component of establishing a successful culture. In Traction, by Gino Wickman, Mr. Wickman emphasizes having the "right people" in the "right seats". Traction provides an extensive 'How to' description and tools to help identify the right people and the right seats for your team. One similarity between the works of these two authors is their admission that having the wrong people on your team will kill your business.
Leadership sets the tone for the culture of any team. A strong, humble leader who engages their team in the process of defining expectations for the business, both how the team operates and interacts with each other, as well as how the team will serve your customers, is essential to establishing a healthy practice. Where do you start? An easy way to begin is to have key members of your team read Good to Great, and then discuss it. It lays the groundwork for expectations of excellence in how a team works. Any team members who aren't in agreement or compatible with your success philosophy will often opt out and refuse to take part in the exercise. This self-selection is very helpful to beginning to establish your culture and to identify the 'right people' on your team, and in identifying a few of the wrong people who will need to get 'off the bus'. As mentioned previously, Traction provides some excellent tools and plans for implementing a successful culture.
Get started today in establishing your culture of success and you will see your practice get healthier!
