It all starts with culture! You can have the greatest mission statement in the world but it’s pointless unless you have people who are on a mission.
—Jon Gordon
It’s no surprise that our work culture is important. It impacts levels of engagement, accountability, productivity, and team synergy. It also impacts attrition as well as the desire to grow and flourish in careers.
Author and speaker Jon Gordon has a blog: 14 Thoughts About Building A Great Culture. Excerpts are below.
1. Great leaders build and drive great cultures.
2. Culture is the reason why great organizations have sustained success.
3. Culture beats strategy.
4. If you focus on the fruit of the tree (outcomes and numbers) and ignore the root (culture) your tree will die.
5. When building a team and organization you must shape your culture before it shapes you.
6. A culture of greatness doesn’t happen by accident.
7. Culture is dynamic, not static.
8. Your culture is not just your tradition.
9. When leading a new team or organization, it will take longer to build a new culture if you allow negative people from the previous culture to contaminate the process.
10. When you build a strong, positive culture most of the energy vampires will leave by themselves because they don’t fit in.
11. Creating a culture where people are afraid to fail leads to failure.
12. Change is a part of every culture and organization.
13. Progress is important but when innovating and driving change make sure you honor your tradition, purpose and culture.
14. Culture is like a tree. Click here to read the entire blog
As leaders, it’s up to us to make a difference in our work culture. We need to share and support our organizational and team goals and values, we need to inspire our teams by listening to their views, we need to provide opportunities that support desired career paths,
and most importantly we need to build trusting relationships.
How’s your work culture?
I used to believe that culture was ‘soft,’ and had little bearing on our bottom line. What I believe today is that our culture has everything to do with our bottom line, now and into the future.
– Vern Dosch, Author, Wired Differently