The Chairman
I facilitate a group of CEOs, Executives, and Business owners to help them enhance their leadership skills and a variety of other great values. We held a workshop yesterday where Earl Bell led us in an exercise on culture, strategy, and tactics. Caused me to think a little bit…
What if you are your own “culture?” As a solo practitioner, I only have me to worry about when it comes to creating and maintaining a culture in my organization. (Full disclosure – Captain Jack IS the chairman of the board and getting him to culture is undeniably an impossible feat. I try to keep him away from social events)
Unfortunately, many of us in the consulting world don’t develop a very good internal culture. To our clients, prospects, and colleagues, we are gold. We do what we say, do it well, communicate as promised, and provide exemplary service and skill leading to tremendous value to our clients. That is an external culture we create in building relationships. However, what do we do internally?
- Do we like our boss?
- Does our boss reward us and praise us for jobs well done?
- Does our boss let us take vacations?
- Does our boss pay us enough?
- Does our boss verbally abuse us or are they constantly positive and up beat?
- Does our boss care about our health and our family?
The list could go on. I think you get my drift.
And to quote a late night infomercial – But wait….there’s more!
What if you do run a larger organization and you are the boss anyway? You may be a CEO, CFO, or President. You can still ask yourself the questions above and be honest with your responses. In my experience, you still don’t have good self-talk which can deflate your own confidence. You don’t reward yourself even though you will go out of you way to reward others.
Start making positive changes by taking stock of where you are today in your relationship with your “boss.” Whether you are a lone wolf or the leader of a large pack of wolves, you can start immediately improving your inner culture today by…
- Rewarding yourself for good work often
- Allowing yourself the luxury of not being perfect
- Forgiving yourself for mistakes (most often only viewed as mistakes by you)
- Planning vacation or get-away time
- Closing your door to outside distractions
- Giving yourself permission to have fun.
Bottom line – when your inner culture is good, it will transfer to your team and your clients. The culture of one becomes a culture of many and you become the driving force in that transformation.
Now THAT calls for a double mocha!
P.S. If you’d like to learn more about my CEO group or others around Puget Sound, click here.
© 2012 Dan Weedin. All Rights Reserved
