Culture isn’t abstract. It’s operational. Here, we unpack the systems, behaviors, and leadership practices that turn culture into a competitive advantage for growing organizations shared in short, practical insights you can implement immediately.
Recognition delayed is recognition denied.
Timeliness is one of the key strategies to effective recognition. Find joy in recognizing people throughout your week each week. Leadership is hard work and there are always things that need feedback, mitigation, and refinement. Don’t forgot to stop, recognize, reinforce, and appreciate. Without it, feedback is harder to receive and your job as a leader misses opportunities to remember why you became a leader in the first place.
If your values don’t show up in the daily grind, they’re just wall art.
Values for some companies feel out of date, but this is simply because people haven’t used them effectively. If you only have your values in a nice picture frame, but don’t make decisions filtered by them, differentiate yourselves as a top employer because of them, and recognize for people living them out, your employees will see right through this.
Your best performers won’t burn out because of workload. They’ll burn out because of lack of clarity.
Clear expectations sounds surprisingly simple, but most leaders we work with assume their expectations are received as they intended rather than taking the time to ensure clarity. Without clarity, employees are left spinning, taking up creative and critical thinking space with worry, annoyance, or detachment instead. Ask employees to share what they think success looks like and/or their first step to see if you are on the same page.