Leadership Tips: High-Performance Teams

That Corporate Culture "Thing"

Successful CEOs obsess about their firm's vision, mission, strategy, goals, systems and talent.

They work hard to align their enterprise and people to plans and desired behaviors, and achieve high-quality, cost-effective results.

Performance is constantly measured - often through a set of key metrics displayed on a dashboard.

Large organizations or "solo-preneurs"...this next part is for all of you.

Leaders are also passionate about something else: Culture.

Many factors go into shaping a firm's culture. I'll focus on two: Rituals and ceremonies.

Research shows they are critical to organizational culture - and performance and profits.

The Stanley Cup

Rituals can vary. They are all around:

-Casual Friday.
-How people greet each other.
-Recognition events.
-Hand-written, "Thank-you" notes.
-The CEO's annual party.
-Fundraising or volunteer efforts.
-Honoring a trophy.

Apple held a celebration of its founder, Steve Jobs.


So, how can you shape your firm's culture?

Two Tips:

1. Start a tradition to symbolize success
   
2. Celebrate success

Invent your own Stanley Cup, and honor someone with it:

• Make it a weekly event. 
• Let last week's recipient choose this week's, and share a story why they made the choice.
• Let the recipient acknowledge the moment, saying what it means to them.

When it comes to developing high performance, culture counts.

And you can not only help shape it, but also build it into your business success.

That's leadership culture.