Your organizational culture has a dramatic impact on your success as a small business. Most new businesses start off with a family-like culture. Everyone trying to get along. Emphasis on survival and continuity. Think of great television families like the Waltons, the Cosbys, and even the Sopranos.
The most successful small companies, at some point, transition from a family culture to a team culture. The focus shifts from sustainability to growth. From compatibility to winning. Think of great sports teams like the San Antonio Spurs, the New England Patriots, and the Boston Red Sox with three World Series championships recently.
How can you tell where your organizational culture lies? See the comparisons below of both families and teams and determine where yours is.
Compensation
Family members are given an allowance to cover expenses. More expenses = more allowance.
Team members are compensated for performance. More home-runs = more salary
Consequences for non-performance
Family members are punished. Never fired.
Team members are traded or cut (fired).
Peer Expectations
Don’t embarrass the family.
Maximum performance.
Continuity
The family will exist for perpetuity.
Every team player and every team has an exit strategy.
“Boomerang” policy?
Family members are always expected to return to the family. Sometimes with additional family members.
Team members are expected to move up or move over to other teams.
Leader selection.
Family leaders are selected based on age.
Team leaders are selected based on competence.
Leadership style.
Family leaders usually lead from the front.
Team leaders succeed by leading from the rear.
Headcount.
Families are always trying to increase headcount.
Teams manage headcount and focus on return on investment.
Quality time.
With other family members.
Mostly outside of the team.
Ultimate goal.
For families, it is survival.
For teams, it is growth and winning.
Growth strategies.
For families, mergers are good.
For teams, it’s about acquiring top talent.
Leader focus.
Family leader focuses on compliance. “Be at dinner on time”. “Clean up your room”.
Team leader focuses on results. “We must outscore the other teams”.
Composition.
Composition of the family stays mostly constant.
Composition of the team changes regularly. Always trying to upgrade the team with new players.
Is your company’s culture a family or a team?
If it’s a family culture, are you ready to make the tough transition to a team environment? Are you prepared to lose family members? Begin holding team members accountable for their performance?
If it’s a team culture, are you getting the results you want? Are you winning championships?
After over thirty years in business I have come to realize two things: I love my family and teams win championships.
BOOK OF THE MONTH “The Power of Full Engagement”, by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz
Efficient time management – it’s a quality every employer is looking for in job seeker; it’s a strength that many claim to boast and a primary reason for their success. But what if I told you the term “time management” was a myth? That managing time has nothing to do with employee productivity, drive, and success?
The Power of Full Engagement, by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, makes a strong case that managing energy is actually the key to high performance, happiness, health, and success both in and out of the office.
The theory… time is fixed.
We can’t stop time.
We can’t slow it down.
The clock will tick no matter what we do.
However, energy fluctuates and is variable depending on the individual and their environment.
The most successful professionals are highly skilled at managing their energy and implementing tactics into their every day life to restore energy. In today’s fact-paced workplace, we have been lead to believe that those who are constantly working are the most productive. It would make sense that more hours at the office equals more output and efficiency.
Loehr and Schwartz argue that this is simply untrue, that the most efficient individuals are those who take intermittent breaks throughout the day, have a strong work-life balance, and are physically, emotionally, cognitively, and spiritually healthy.
This book will make you seriously examine your core values and re-organize your life to better position yourself for both happiness and success.
I strongly recommend this book.
USEFUL WEB TOOLS 15FIVE
Are you looking for a new or better way of communicating with your employees. Several of my clients have started using this website to do so. Your employee takes fifteen minutes to write a weekly report and you spend five minutes reading and evaluating what they have done. It’s a simple tool and it can build accountability in your organization.
A LITTLE HUMOR… The Laws of Physics: All true…
1. Law of Mechanical Repair -After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch and you’ll have to pee.
2. Law of Gravity – Any tool, nut, bolt, screw, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible place in the universe.
3. Law of Probability – The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act.
4. Law of Random Numbers – If you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal; someone always answers.
5. Variation Law – If you change lines (or traffic lanes), the one you were in will always move faster than the one you are in now.
6. Law of Close Encounters – The probability of meeting someone you know INCREASES dramatically when you are with someone you don’t want to be seen with.
7. Law of the Result – When you try to prove to someone that a machine won’t work, IT WILL!!!
8. Law of Biomechanics – The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.
9. Law of the Theatre & Hockey Arena – At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle, always arrive last. They are the ones who will leave their seats several times to go for food, beer, or the toilet and who leave early before the end of the performance or the game is over. The folks in the aisle seats come early, never move once, have long gangly legs or big bellies and stay to the bitter end of the performance. The aisle people also are very surly folk.
10. Murphy’s Law of Lockers – If there are only 2 people in a locker room, they will have adjacent lockers.
11. Law of Physical Surfaces – The chances of an open-faced jelly sandwich landing face down on a floor are directly correlated to the newness and cost of the carpet or rug.
12. Law of Public Speaking — A CLOSED MOUTH GATHERS NO FEET!
13. Law of Commercial Marketing Strategy – As soon as you find a product that you really like, they will stop making it OR the store will stop selling it!
14. Doctors’ Law – If you don’t feel well, make an appointment to go to the doctor, by the time you get there, you’ll feel better. But don’t make an appointment and you’ll stay sick.