Setting Your Business Up for Cultural Success
Mar 15, 2023
There are a lot of aspects to culture in a business. In this blog I want to look at the foundation of culture - from there you can grow it and continue to nurture it. Read on if you want to learn from my very valuable lessons.
I’ve always liked to be in a positive environment and surround myself with positive people. I mean really, who doesn’t want that? In the early stages of my real estate business, we had a very small team. I was just trying to get by and make small improvements and have small wins each day. I knew I wanted a positive, professional culture where staff were happy to come to work, I also knew I needed to make money to pay the bills - survival was my first priority so I recruited for skill and people that interviewed well. However, as the team grew it became apparent that there were some people “on the bus” that were causing rifts. I refer to them now as “a cancer” in the office. These issues start small but they soon take over and can be deadly to a business. I had seen it in businesses that I’d worked in before and never thought it would happen to me. The worst thing was these people made me a lot of money - so I kept trying to put bandaids on issues in order to keep all parties at bay. But it got worse and I became very stressed due to the financial pressures if I moved them on. I didn’t have the courage to let them go.
Fortunately for me, they left in the end - the team just pushed them out. I was devastated at the time as I was worried about how the business would survive and thrive. However, the opposite was true. The rest of the team were so much happier that they stepped up, my mind was freed from the extra stress they were causing me and I had more headspace to put into productive tasks. The business really moved forward from there. In fact, that whole stressful experience taught me an invaluable lesson. You have to have the right culture to thrive in the long run. You need to have the right people on the bus that work well as a team and respect each other and you. They don’t all need to be best of friends, but respect for your team is important. From then onwards I was much more likely to move someone on and listen to team members if there was someone that did not fit our culture or was causing rifts. Of course, we would first try to sort through the issues and get things back on track, however, if things weren’t going to change we moved them on.
You also need to create clear guidelines within your business so staff knows how to handle issues and conflict when issues arise - as they always arise. There are a few key things that I’d like to share with you that really helped our team.
1. It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. In other words, be thoughtful in how you phrase things and the tone of your voice. Don’t just shoot off at the mouth when there is an issue - it’s likely to make the issue worse. For example - if you feel someone has been rude to you - rather than saying - “don’t be so rude”, why not say “you don’t seem yourself today, is everything ok, is there anything I can help with? You’ll likely find the reason for their rudeness has nothing to do with you and they’ll either open up to you or apologise for how they spoke to you.
2. Emails are not a great way to address issues with colleagues. I’ve often seen issues escalate very quickly via email. Then, when I’ve been required to step in to sort out the issue, it became clear quickly that neither party meant for things to come across aggressively. Emails should not be used to solve issues between colleagues. A simple conversation is always a better option in my mind.
3. We had a clear guideline that was set out in our Induction on the day the new team member started - this is one of the best pieces of advice I can give you.
“If you have an issue with a colleague, go and see them in person and have a one-on-one chat in private. Be thoughtful in how you phrase things and try and sort it out without involving anyone else or talking behind that person's back. If you are not sure how to approach that person or issue with them, then confidentiality comes to me and I’ll give you some ideas. I will only get involved once you’ve tried to resolve it yourself. As once management gets involved it becomes a much bigger issue. “
This pretty much fixed most of our issues - staff knew from day one how they were expected to handle issues.
4. The other piece of gold I can give you is again related to the induction. They need to know from day one, actually even during the interview -
“We don’t tolerate bitchiness or gossip. If you would not say something in front of someone, then don’t say it behind their back. This then comes back to point 3 - if you have an issue with someone talk to them directly - but don’t go talking to everyone else about it”.
Hopefully, this gives you some basic starting blocks. If you have existing staff in your business that have not been through an induction that addresses the above - don’t be too concerned. You can always start today and bring the team together and use it as a really positive discussion or part of a planning day. We are happy to help if you need some advice around this.
