Business Culture
When you first opened your practice, how much time, energy and effort did you put into building your culture?
… As podiatry business owners we’re often so obsessed with delivering amazing service, the best treatment and getting our patient systems in place that we don’t have time to think about culture.
And while these thinga are very important – most of us realise the importance of culture too far down the track, and often when it’s too late …
So, what is Culture?
One really long explanation of culture is:
“In an effective team culture, team members understand why they are participating in the team and how the team fits within their organisation. In an effective team culture, team members understand where their work fits in the total context of their organisation’s strategic plan and success goals”
I define it as:
“Why we do things the way we do around here, and why we are doing them in the first place. What it means to be human around here …”
A strong culture is EIGHT times more impactful on your business than a Strategic Plan, and as soon as you have more than 2 people in your business – you have a culture.
So it’s pretty important.
As the business owner you can establish the core values, and it’s vital to communicate what’s important and keep everyone on the same page. But you don’t own the culture – your team does.
When your team goes home, so does the culture. The KEY is to ensure it turns up again the next day…
We (the business owner) cannot control culture … all we can do is inspire and instill the values and ideals for our culture by How We Show Up – how we inspire our teams.
Define how you communicate with each other, interact with your patients, referrers and even suppliers.
Once you have defined your core values, you can then explore the behaviours that uphold those values and hold each other accountable.
… Teams ‘get’ culture.
They understand the need for good, strong culture in order to see their business excel – in fact, they will most likely have the most input into building your culture and core values with you.
So, when are you going to spend some time defining your team culture and the behaviours that will drive it? … BEFORE your next strategic planning day maybe?
til next time,
Troy Parsons
