Today, I want to talk about culture and what that means to your team as an organization.
There are three things that I want to go over: defining culture, hiring for culture, and maintaining culture.
1. Defining culture. How many of you can clearly articulate what your culture means or what it is to your team members, to your company, and to your clients? Believe it or not, there are a lot of people that can’t articulate what their company’s culture is. They think they know it but don’t have it nailed down.
That’s okay—it’s a work in progress. It’s not an easy thing to have nailed down all the time. It takes a lot of different iterations to understand what is your culture as an organization or as a team.
Defining your culture is critical to building the foundation for success for your company.
At Moncord, what mattered early on to us was family, contribution, generosity, and authenticity. Those were big things that we were all in on. We needed to make sure that we have team members that bought into that and fit that culture. Make sure you identify what those attributes of your culture are so you can share it in words and demonstrate it in action.
2. Hiring for culture. At Moncord, we’ve gone through a few years of hiring now. It hasn’t always been easy to hire the right people, and we’ve learned important lessons every time we’ve hired someone.
It used to be that we hired for the position, but we learned that we need to supersede that with culture. We want to make sure that the people coming on board are a good fit for what matters to us and our company. If we hire the right people who are teachable, moldable, and buy into the vision, they will service our clients that much better.
We’ve hired very talented people with a lot of experience, but there may have been a disconnect in the fit because they weren’t aligned with our culture. That doesn’t mean they won’t be a good fit anywhere else, but they just didn’t work out for Moncord and what we stand for and what we believe in.
We’ve been implementing better practices to make sure we hire people who will be a good fit. They go through a 30-day trial to give us an idea of how they fit in with our team culture. We have established a core group of people to train that person, and we have to reach a consensus at the executive level. That has been super helpful. We highly recommend that you establish a hiring process tied to your culture and figure out how it will identify and validate this person as a good culture fit rather than just a good fit for the position.
3. Maintaining the culture. Without maintenance, it all falls apart. Make sure that you are communicating the culture on a regular basis to your team member. Don’t just say it—make sure you are demonstrating your culture with actions. Live those attributes of the culture among your team as a whole and even extend that out to your clients.
As a team, ask if you are still living the values and attributes that you’ve established for what you feel to be a successful culture for your organization. If the answer is yes, great. If not, recalibrate what the culture means to you and figure out how to communicate that with action and words.
On our team, we’ve had multiple scenarios where life happens. You want to be there for your team when it really matters. Show up with action behind it, not just words of goodwill. Show your team and your clients that you really care for them.
Hopefully, you found this information helpful. Culture is very important, so if you have any other questions, just give me a call or send me an email. I would be happy to help you!
