By Bill Kaiser, Senior Consultant
All too common
C\’mon, admit it. You\’ve gone through the traditional culture building exercise of defining your vision, mission and core values statements at least once in your career. Did anyone walk away from this process feeling like the outcome was nothing more than framed statements occupying the empty spaces between your Successories motivational posters? The end product may have “looked good on paper,” but did it help your people and organization perform any better? Did it contribute to creating a sustained differentiation in your commoditized marketplace? Are you now attracting and retaining better employees?
Don\’t get me wrong. There is value in answering, “Where are we going as an organization?” (Vision); or “Why are we in this business?” (Mission) or “How do we conduct ourselves?” (Core Values). Having statements that reflect our passion and conviction can powerfully align our workforce. The problem is that most of the time, the statements we write reflect a fill-in-the-blank exercise and are so broad and abstract they become meaningless.
A shift in thinking
Regular readers of this blog know we\’re advocates for a shift in thinking for how we go about defining our cultures. It\’s much more than simply articulating vision, mission and values. A high-performing culture is fueled by the identification and practice of the behaviors we want to see, every day, that drive our success. Behaviors are visible and much easier to coach, teach and provide feedback on than the esoteric values.
Identifying behaviors
The first step in our 8-Step Framework for institutionalizing your culture is to define, with great clarity, the employee behaviors (Fundamentals) that drive your success. When leading this discussion with CEOs and their executive teams, the following questions help us identify those critical behaviors:
At High Performing Culture, one of the 30 Fundamentals we practice is “Deliver Results.” While effort is appreciated, we reward and celebrate results! If you\’re serious about driving a high-performing culture to achieve better results and a sustainable market differentiation, it requires more than just a fill-in-the-blank-exercise. It all starts with identifying behaviors.
Looking forward to sharing more in future blogs regarding the power of our 8-Step Framework. Feel free to call or shoot us an email to discuss any of this in more detail.