It can be easy for managers to get caught up in the daily grind, tasks that need to be accomplished, goals that must be met. A team of employees is in place to help hit these marks, and when they do, often times it is swept under the rug as simply another part of the work day.
The managers, though, carry more accountability than just making sure objectives are completed. They are also responsible for company culture, creating one that is successful, encouraging employees to buy in, and following the same guidelines themselves.
At the 2014 NSCA Business and Leadership Conference, Adrian Gostick, author of The Carrot Principle, The Orange Revolution, and All In, addressed these business issues in the keynote “7 Steps Managers Can Use to Create a High-Achieving Culture.”
“Culture really begins with an individual,” Gostick said, and it trickles into the team, department, and company. He emphasized managers “have control over our employees’ careers.” With that comes important factors to be considered when interacting with the team in place.
Gostick mapped out keys to establishing this culture: define your platform, create a customer focus, develop agility, share everything, partner with your talent, root for each other, and establish clear accountability.
Of these, he emphasized three steps during the presentation. Developing agility means being flexible with ideas and new processes. It is easy for companies to fall into the “glory days trap,” as Gostick called it, and go about their business a certain way just because that’s how they did it in the past. He encouraged managers to ask their employees questions key to their growth at 90 days and be open to what they hear.
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When it comes to sharing everything, Gostick noted, “we don’t want surprises in our businesses.” He encouraged managers to create an environment where employees feel safe to be truthful. He also challenged those to ask themselves, do you withhold information and give credit where it’s due?
Establishing clear accountability holds managers responsible in their roles. Accountable leaders, Gostick said, establish clear goals, know when to cheer and challenge, do not accept mediocrity, are consistent, ensure employees hit deadlines and live the company principles.
A key to this is remembering accountability should not always be negative. In fact, the ideal ratio of positive to negative feedback in the workplace is 5:1. Gostick referenced a 2013 Harvard Business Review in which top teams gave each other 5.6 positive comments to each negative, while low performing teams received only 0.36 positive comments to every negative.
“The soft stuff is the hard stuff,” Gostick recognized, but there are simple-to-follow steps that can make a big impact on creating a solid company culture: recognize now not later; recognize often (every seven days); recognize the specifics versus a generic ‘great job;’ be sincere and root for one another.
“Great cultures give each other a pat on the back,” Gostick said, “Not a slap on the head.”
