What's Your Standard?
Happy Thanksgiving week everyone! Thomas Joyner here with BOP. I want to talk about culture a bit today. How do you protect it, nurture it, and build it on purpose?
I was sitting in on a coaching meeting the other day and a business owner was talking about experiencing an employee fly off the handle in a business meeting. There was someone they worked with in the room and the employee dropped an f-bomb towards the other guy in a heated discussion.
Nothing was said to address the behavior at the moment, but the question was posed to our team... what do we do about that?
We asked a few more clarifying questions, but at the end of the day, we knew this couldn’t be tolerated. You can’t live that emotionally and expect others to continue to do business with you. That’s what is so important about culture.
A great quote came to mind that a friend had shared with me months back and it’s this…” What you allow in your presence, IS your standard.”
I’ll say that again, what you allow in your presence is your standard.
It’s that important! In essence, by saying nothing when the employee dropped an f-bomb, you’re not explicitly cheering them on, but you are subtly giving your approval of their behavior. You’re saying “I watched this happen and that is fine by me” when you stay silent.
Now we went back to the businesses Vision story and looked at their culture section. We asked the question if this is the culture you wrote down...the one you want others to see and experience, can this behavior be tolerated?
The answer was a quick and decisive, NO!
Ok, so let’s put a plan in to talk about this with your employee. Now, this was the first time they had ever blown up like this. So, it was a great time for the owner to check in and see if there was something else going on at home or something going on that day. It’s a PERFECT time to nurture the culture of your business with a personal touch.
Your employees aren’t just soulless, emotionless chess pieces for you to move around, but are real people with real lives!
They’ve got to be cared for and known.
So, what the business owner did was set up a meeting and lean in. Not take their hands off. Not condemn the person, but condemn the action as a way to care about them AND the culture of the business. Casting vision for how he will see him in the future and pushing him to realize that potential!
Said another way, how you allow your employees to act, treat one another, treat other businesses IS your culture. It’s the little memories that other businesses point towards to decide who they want to work with. It’s what’s said about your business at a casual lunch that either propels someone to call you or sends them to the next person on their contact list.
It has to be fought for!
So, you have to ask yourself. What am I allowing to be said, acted on, or accomplished in my presence or business that is slowly becoming the standard. Culture isn’t created or destroyed all at once. It’s a series of tiny corrections along the way to arrive at a destination. Use your Vision...use your mission statement...use your core values to put up barriers to keep yourself on track towards your culture goal.
It NEVER just happens…
Hope you all have a fantastic Thanksgiving...as always if you want to see more of what we do, head on over to mybusinessonpurpose.com and check us out! Follow our podcast, too, for some free coaching.
Take care!
