Establishing Your Organizational Culture
We’ve talked about culture in the past, especially Ownership Culture where employees are so invested into the business, that they act as owners in the company. Here we talk about a tactical exercise in order to help you understand and maintain your culture.
Your company’s culture can arise from places you haven’t even thought of. If you’re not paying attention to it, it is easy for the culture to trend towards a direction you never intended. There are many things to pay attention to on this topic, but we’ll stick with one big one here… the people.
When you are solo, your culture is you, your own viewpoint, and your own personality. When you grow your team, your culture becomes much bigger than you, so it is important to have a purposeful strategy around developing the company you want before even your first hire. Here’s are the highlights on how to do this:
Business Foundations
This is your Core Values, Vision, Mission, and Story. Where a lot of companies go wrong is they do not reinforce these days after day… they come up with some cool-sounding buzz words and store them on a desk. Think of this piece as your company’s personality that is unique to itself. Give this the time it deserves, and reinforce it constantly.
People Analyzer
This is a tool we use often, developed by the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) and it gives great insight to the people you have working at your company. You should hire, fire, and promote based on this quick assessment. If you are not familiar, here is how you do it:
- We’re making a table. at the top, write your Core Values, and “get it” “want it” and “capacity to do it”
- The latter is in reference to the job roles & responsibilities specifically. the former is about the person.
- On the Y-axis, write the names of your team members, including yourself!
- Complete the table with a “yes” or a “no” – there are no maybes!
- For the core values section, the question is “does this person exemplify this core value on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis?”
- For the job R&Rs, the question is “does this person get (understand) their job role?” “does this person want to be doing this job role (does it get them excited)?” and “is this person capable of performing this job role to standards?”
- If there is a “NO” anywhere, you have something to look into.
We will also add the vision/mission onto this and ask the question “does this person get excited about fulfilling the mission?” and “does this person align with the vision?” to put even further emphasis on the importance of this.
This people analyzer tool is good to use every 6-12 months. It ensures you are keeping an eye on what is most important for your company, and are course-correcting quickly before things get out of hand.
To speak with a coach for more ways to improving your company culture, and using the people analyzer tool, click below to schedule your intro call