By Candace Coleman, CultureWise Content Manager
Many business leaders will tell you that their company’s most important asset is their team. And because they understand how valuable their people are, they make a conscious effort to provide competitive salaries and benefits. They strive to make employees feel like a part of the big picture and create an inviting workplace where people enjoy spending time.
Consequently, their staff may be relatively happy. But leaders who leave it at that overlook something just as important to employees as compensation, perks, and even being aligned with organizational goals.
Most people want more than to feel good about where they work; they want to feel great about what they do. They want to excel.
Instead of being satisfied with employees who seem content, leaders should activate the kind of company culture that will help them thrive. Why? It’s not only advantageous for the individuals who work for them; it’s great for business.
When people are proud of what they achieve personally, they’re more potent agents for organizational success. As they realize their increased value within the company, they become more vested in its capacity to prevail in the marketplace.
Helping employees shine can propel a business that has carved out an average market share to one that gains an edge over the competition.
Great sports coaches make an effort to help team members achieve personal bests. They do it for several reasons; individuals who strive to hit successive benchmarks have more skill to offer the team. And people who perform at a high level are also happier and more confident—a contagious attitude that helps teams prevail.
But the same coaches are keenly aware that there’s a difference between cultivating a team of champions and a team of superstars.
Superstars may or may not be team players—their focus is often only on their own achievements. A team of superstars can have a hit-or-miss record because its players don’t align their talents.
Champions are different.
People who are coached to have a championship mentality focus on applying their best individual contributions to help the team triumph.
Business leaders should have the same outlook and goal as legendary sports coaches. If they empower employees to do their best work in a team-oriented environment, they won’t just see occasional wins. They’ll build a united staff of high achievers who can make their company a victor in the marketplace.
As Michael Jordan said, “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.”
A commitment to strengthening company culture can make an enormous difference in everyone’s performance level. But a high performing culture isn’t the same as one that merely stresses values or is put into place to boost people’s spirits.
A strong culture is built on sustaining the kind of behaviors that drive ongoing best performances for individuals and organizations.
Companies that help people internalize winning behaviors cultivate fulfilled, engaged employees who are team players.
The first step in creating a winning culture is to outline behaviors that elevate personal performance and dovetail with company goals. Some of these behaviors center more on how employees work, and others focus on how management helps them succeed. Here are some great examples.
Workers who achieve personal success want to keep up that momentum. They develop a growth mindset and become more resilient and proactive. They gain confidence, and their overall life view improves.
Author and leadership expert Mark Murphy expands on this point in Forbes:
“Confident employees are more engaged, they approach work more autonomously, they have greater self-reliance, and they’re better problem solvers. And that’s just a warm-up to the many reasons why building a team of confident players works to everyone’s advantage.”
Companies that help their employees succeed wind up with a high-performing workforce that drives organizational opportunity and profit.
Everybody wins.
A culture built upon winning behaviors sounds like a great idea. But how is it created and effectively reinforced within an organization?
After leaders identify optimum behaviors, they need to find a way to make them part of their company’s genetic code. Business leaders need a dependable process and the right tools to empower their people and develop a championship team. These things will allow them to consistently teach and help their staff practice success-driving behaviors.
As leadership consultant Patrick Lencioni points out:
“There’s no way employees can be empowered to fully execute their responsibilities if they don’t receive clear and consistent messages about what is important from their leaders across the organization.”
Arriving at the same conclusion as Lencioni, CultureWise founder and author David Friedman designed a unique method to develop and maintain a high performing culture. The seasoned CEO formulated the ideology while leading an award-winning firm and then wrote two books that detail his technique.
His second publication, Culture by Design, explains exactly how a high-performing culture is formulated and outlines his step-by-step method. A free, two-chapter download of this valuable resource is currently available.
The CultureWise program is based on the framework described in Culture by Design, but it offers business leaders a ground-breaking way to operationalize their culture.
CultureWise provides a vast library of behavioral teaching content and a unique delivery system that employees access daily to help them improve. The program is available in two editions and can help companies of any size create championship teams.