While these companies do a lot of things well, I’d argue that their biggest assets are their unique corporate cultures.

As a consultant, I have spent lots of time helping clients shape and build their company cultures. The culture your company creates affects everything that you do and how you do it.

Here are six tips and ideas to help you build your organizational culture.

1. Craft a mission and vision statement.

The foundation of your organizational performance should be your company’s mission and vision statement. This is a written statement that outlines what you believe in (mission) and where you are headed (vision).

Bring together a cross-functional team to create these essential documents. This will increase the likelihood that the rest of the company will buy in and support it.

2. Communicate it.

Once you have developed a clear mission and vision, it’s critically important to have a communication plan to roll it out to everyone. You can do this through group meetings, one-on-one calls and in email communications.

3. Develop behavioral standards.

Next, you must develop behavioral standards that describe how the mission and vision will be executed on in terms of behavior. If part of the mission is to be a world-class service provider, then how does that play out in terms of how your team interacts with a customer in person and on the phone? How about by email?

Many people assume team members know how to behave, but the reality is they don’t. The only way to get consistency is through written behavioral standards. The standards must be either observable, tangible or measurable.

For example, you could say: We’ll greet every customer with a smile and a hello (observable). Or you could say: This is what our final product looks like when it is done to our standard (tangible). You could also say: We will answer the phone by the third ring (measurable).

I advise my clients to create a behavioral standards committee to develop the standards. Why? Aside from getting better buy-in, you also get better ideas from people who are on the front lines every day, and they are the people who know what is really happening.

4. Implement behavioral standards training.

Once the standards are in writing, everyone needs to be trained in the new expectations. The companies I mentioned at the beginning of this article obsessively train staff on their standards. It’s how they deliver.

5. Create rewards and consequences.

If you have behavioral standards, then I hope people will follow them. But the reality is that you have to reinforce behavioral standards by rewarding people when they meet and exceed them, and by letting people know there are consequences for not meeting them. When people get rewarded for meeting or exceeding behavior standards, the news travels fast.

6. Conduct performance reviews.

If you have annual performance reviews, change them to include the mission, vision and behavioral standards. If they are not included in the annual review, then after one review cycle, all your hard work will fade away. People only pay attention to what gets measured and evaluated.

The bottom line is that you create the culture. It is up to you to build it, foster it, support it and live it. When you do, you’ll have true excellence, and you will get great results.

The post From Startup to Sensation In 6 Steps appeared first on Shawn Doyle Training.

As I wrote this, I was on a plane flying from Austin, Texas to Denver, Colorado. Do you think that the pilot would have taken off from the airport aimlessly, without any kind of flight plan? If you go on a cruise, does the captain drift without direction and hope that the ship makes it to the intended destination? Both of those questions seem ridiculous, don’t they? You’d never trust a pilot or a captain who would wander pointlessly – how can you get somewhere without a set course? Despite how obviously useless having no direction may seem, it’s something that I see all of the time.

Before you read further take a quick assessment by answering the following questions “yes” or “no”.

1. Have you set personal leadership goals and objectives?
2. Are these leadership goals in writing?
3. Do you have short term, mid term and long terms leadership goals?
4. Does your company have company goals for this year?
5. Are these company goals in writing?
6. Does every employee of your company know what these goals are?
7. Does your company have long term goals and objectives?

Well, how did you do? Ok, now back to our regularly scheduled article. 🙂

I’ve spoken at several corporations across the country, doing keynotes and training sessions. When I conduct an exercise about short, mid, and long term goals, I’m astounded. Why? I’m astounded because 98% of the participants don’t have goals of any kind. How do I know? I ask them. They simply don’t have them, and offer several interesting reasons as to why:

“I don’t have the time – I’m just too busy.”

“I haven’t really thought about it.”

“It doesn’t seem that important.”

Do we have a new generation that doesn’t have goals? No, the people in the sessions are a wide range of ages from 20 – 60. I am very concerned that people are operating their personal and professional lives without a real purpose and a plan (written or other wise). This is not conjecture – this is what they are telling me.

Why Some People Have No Leadership Goals And Objectives

So why do people operate this way without direction of personal or professional goals? The question is a compelling one that I can’t answer.

So then I wonder, does this also happen with companies? Surely the CEOs, CFOs, and executives in companies set leadership goals and objectives, right? Well, a few months ago, I was facilitating an executive retreat. “Do you have strategic leadership goals and objectives for this year?” I asked them. After a few seconds of awkward silence, the CEO spoke up quietly:
”Well, sort of.” I said “either you do or you don’t.” Silence.
“Do you have strategic leadership goals and objectives for this year?” I continued. More silence.
“Um, we should probably work on that,” muttered the CFO, raising an eyebrow.
“Do you have a long term plan for the next 3 to 5 years?” They all shifted uncomfortably in their seats. I already knew what the answer was going to be.
“No.”

Why Many Companies Have No Leadership Goals And Objectives

While many Fortune 500 companies have comprehensive and well articulated plans, I’m finding many mid to small sized companies have no plans whatsoever. (Don’t argue the point. I see it all over the country.)

Why is that? There are several possible reasons:

• Their bias against goal setting in their personal life can transfer to their company. Because they don’t have goals in their personal life, they don’t have them in the company either. A company that is successful despite itself.
• They’re so caught in the day-to-day operations that they only serve urgent issues at the expense of the company’s future. This leads to a form of myopic thinking where they are concentrating only on today, next week and this month. They are caught up on the “ what’s on fire syndrome”, ruled by urgency.
• They founded a business because they were good at something, but never gained the skill of strategic planning. They don’t have a critical skill to build the companies long term future.

How can leaders without an actual plan lead companies with hundreds of employees who have faith in their leadership? It’s very disconcerting.

4 Examples of What You Can Do Starting Today

If you are a leader, what can you do? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Model goal setting in your personal life.
   I believe that leaders have to mirror the behavior they want to see in their employees. Show employees you are doing comprehensive goal setting in your personal life and encourage them to do the same.
2. Encourage employees to set personal goals, and provide training if needed.
   If you take the time to do training on this topic, you will illustrate how important it is.
3. Take time to bring your team together to set company goals yearly.
   Make sure that you meet with your executive team and set smart leadership goals and objectives for the following year that are measurable and specific. Set goals for revenue, cash flow, profit margins etc. If you can’t do it on your own bring in outside help. Yes it can be costly but you can’t afford not to.
4. Communicate the leadership goals and objectives to all employees on a consistent and regular basis.
   If it’s not communicated, it doesn’t exist. Make sure to communicate it frequently and give regular updates on the goals and where you stand as a company. It will drive employees to help make the goals.

Keep in mind that people cannot hit a target that they’ve never identified. In the words of Socrates, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

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Want to know more? Read my article, How To Achieve Your Goals.

The post Setting Leadership Goals and Objectives appeared first on Shawn Doyle Training.

What the heck happened to you this last year? Time really does fly, doesn’t it? In fact, it’s supersonic. There may have been a lot of things that you didn’t get done.

So how do you leverage your time and make sure you’re using it as effectively as possible this year? You need to put into practice the habit of thinking with the short-term, mid-term, and long-term views in mind.

Short-Term Thinking – The Next 12 Months

What is short term thinking? It’s simply thinking about the next 12 months on a strategic level. For example, you may already have goals and objectives, along with strategies for achieving those goals. Still, that’s only one part of the equation. You need to also have mid-term thinking.

Mid-Term Thinking – 18-24 Months Out

Mid term thinking involves plans and objectives for the next 18-24 months. I travel around the country and work with lots of people. Interestingly enough, 99.9% of these individuals have never thought about having plans and objectives for their next 18-24 months.

Using mid term thinking as a planning and strategy tool will put you way ahead of most. In fact, it will help you to achieve extraordinary results. So, both short and mid term thinking are helpful. However, long term thinking has the most impact. In my opinion, it separates the wheat from the chaff, the good from the great, and makes all of the difference!

Long Term Thinking – The Next 3-5 Years

Long term thinking is having plans and objectives for the next 3-5 years. Three to five years? You probably think I’m joking. I’m not, five years gives you the ability to stretch your thinking and create a strategy around time and resources.

Benefits of Long-Term Goal Setting Activities

Practicing long term thinking has some fantastic benefits:

• It allows you to make better decisions: “Is this aligned with my long term goal?”
• It’s motivating: “Yes, I want to work all these hours, because in five years, I’ll be wealthy.”
• It gives you credibility both professionally and personally: consider this, if someone asks you why you decided to do something, answering, “I don’t know, it seemed like a good idea” probably isn’t going to do much for you. On the other hand, explaining your reason for doing something in this way: “This ties into my long term goal for my division of growing revenue 57% by 2022” sounds a lot better. Do you see the difference?
• It allows you to use resources wisely: “Do I need to buy this? Yes, this investment is going to help me reach my goal of ______.”

Create Your Long Term Goals List

Take the time to sit down with a piece of paper, a journal, a laptop, or a stone tablet, and define short, mid, and long term goal goals for every area of your life:

• Professional/Career
• Social
• Financial
• Spiritual
• Family
• Health
• Personal Growth

Here is a list of questions to help guide you through the process:

• Where do you want to be in five years, and why?
• What are the resources which would or could help you get there?
• What barriers stand in your way, and why?
• How can you reduce or eliminate those barriers?
• What do you still need to learn to reach this goal?
• What are your resources for learning?
• If achieved, what impact would this goal have on your life?
• Why is that impact important?
• What actions do you need to take in year 1?
• What actions do you need to take in year 2?
• What actions do you need to take in year 3?
• What actions do you need to take in year 4?
• What actions do you need to take in year 5?
• How much time do you need to commit per month to achieve this goal?
• What other resources do you need (money, people, etc.) in order to achieve this?

If you answer these questions, and have a short, mid, and long term plan for your life, you will be unstoppable!

In five years, you’ll be . . . well, you tell me! I can tell you from experience that people who practice long term thinking are not only remarkable, but remarkably successful.

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