How developing a culture of winning is foundational to successful business growth
A company’s culture plays a foundational role in its success, often influencing aspects like employee engagement, productivity, innovation, customer satisfaction, and long-term sustainability. While it is challenging to assign an exact percentage to culture’s contribution, numerous studies and business cases suggest that it is a critical driver of overall success.
The most successful cultures are communities – a group of people with complimentary contributions that are aligned toward a shared vision. Companies such as Google and Apple have been strategic about designing and supporting their company cultures, and while there may not be research to directly back the return on investment, one could easily connect the dots between developing a productive company culture and the results they have produced.
In my 20 or so years working with companies, I have seen hundreds of different company cultures, from the highly engaged to the transactional to the somewhat functional to the toxic. There are no cases in which leadership has not been intentional about creating company culture where the culture was excellent – high engagement, productivity, innovation, customer satisfaction, sustainable and scalable. In every case where the culture was excellent, it was excellent on purpose!
On one of our episodes of the Relentless Pursuit of Winning podcast (https://RPOWpodcast.com), I spoke with Nicole Stines about company culture. In her role as a fractional HR Leader, she mentioned that she learned her love for HR by parlaying the team building skills she learned as an athlete into developing effective company cultures at the companies that she serves. She noted that as a leader, it takes the same comradery, shared vision, communication, acknowledgement, personal and team development that it takes to build a team in a company.
In sports, the goal is to win. Sure, there are a lot of secondary lessons that every athlete needs to learn in addition to their craft – sportsmanship, how to lose well, how to win well, how to not be an…uh…jerk…but at the end of the day, the goal is to win. Not just as individuals, but as a team. Not just on the good days, but every time they get on the court. Every game is individual. Last week’s game didn’t matter, and even during a losing season you practice, you train and you play your heart out every single game.
For your company’s team to be effective, it starts with building a culture that will embrace its effectiveness. This is a strategic initiative that will require a significant undertaking, but will result in a company that is resilient, long-standing and supports sustainable growth. Included in the strategy are the following:
1. Establishing a clear-cut vision that everyone on the team can embrace. If everyone is on the same page and knows where the team is going, it will be easier to help people understand their contribution and make them feel like part of the team.
2. Defining goals that clearly link to the vision. Aligning them with how they contribute to the vision makes the vision more “tangible,” so to speak, and shows the potential for progress toward the vision.
3. Getting the right people on the team in the right roles. For any team to be successful, it is important to get the right people on the team. While it is great to have loyal people, not everyone is designed or experienced to be successful at every phase of business growth. The thing is: everyone on the team knows when the wrong person or people are on the bus.
4. Letting people do their job. When someone on your team is out of their position or role, there are often consequences that impact the entire team, typically in the realm of productivity, but also in employee morale, confidence in team members and even the outcome of the initiative. Everyone on the team was brought to the team to do a specific job. Let them do it or replace them if they cannot.
5. Establishing a culture of growth
Encouraging team members to think differently. Diverse thinking on your team will enable the team to address problems, challenges and opportunities from varied perspectives that could result in innovative solutions
Ensuring everyone has a voice. When you put outspoken and quiet people at the same table, those who are outspoken tend to dominate the thinking, which means that you are losing out on the introspective, patient, observant thinking from the quieter people. Make sure to accommodate for them, and don’t make the mistake of thinking everyone handles information the same way.
Introducing an environment of intentional continuous improvement and innovation. Creating something that is truly novel is far less likely than improving on something that already exists.
6. Embracing the losses and ensure that the team is ready and willing to evolve from the mistakes. Every time you miss the lesson in the loss, your loss multiplies.
7. Evaluating the wins. While it is important to celebrate the wins as a team, it is just as, if not more important, to understand why the win happened and still, what mistakes were made that could result in improved performance in the next instance.
8. Leading the way. As a leader, the team will take its queues from you. As a leader, your job is to clearly articulate the vision for the company and lead the way there. If you lose faith in the vision, so will they.
9. Inspecting what you expect. Building a strong team is an intentional activity. The team must be clear on what is expected, held accountable for their contributions (or lack thereof) and must receive accurate, constructive feedback and support in order to be the best they can be.
10. Taking Action. If change needs to be made, make the change. Don’t wait. Don’t be of two minds about it. Be decisive, and act with a sense of urgency.
11. Not missing the forest because of the trees. Keep in mind that there is often more than one way to get things done. Getting stuck in the details can cause the team to lose sight of the big picture and result in lower performance.
Every team and every culture is going to be different. There isn’t a blueprint that is going to produce the perfect team and perfect team dynamics. As a leader, you are going to need to put the time and energy into creating the culture that will allow your team to thrive. You’ll need to be consistent, decisive and observant in order to build the right team so that your company can thrive. Don’t be discouraged that every action may not appear to be wins. Regardless of the outcome, you’ll learn, grow and make impact along the way.
Build a culture that embraces a Relentless Pursuit of Winning!
Aepiphanni is a 19-year-old firm dedicated to fueling growth through the alignment of strategy, systems, and technology with a relentless pursuit of winning. We offer Growth Leadership, instruction and original content to purpose-driven founders of SMB’s to educate, equip and inspire them to build world-changing companies.
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