One day, I walked into my company….and I didn’t like it. In fact, wanted to quit my own company.
Sure we were doing well. Actually really well. Nurse Next Door had grown from just my Ken and I, to 1000 employees in just over 4 years. Explosive growth. And it put us in the league of being one of the fastest growing companies in North America at the time. Jim Collins, Author of Good to Great and Built to Last, said “if you are growing over 20% per year, be very scared.” We were growing at over 1000%, per year! Sure we were winning award after award, and getting a lot of recognition, for being two young entrepreneurs who were building a fast growing company. But something was missing. I wasn’t having fun, I wasn’t enjoying life as an entrepreneur. And I walked in that day and realized that something had to change fast. Or else I wasn’t going to make it in my own company!
Luckily Ken and I felt exactly the same way. We went for a three hour lunch, and hatched a plan. When we arrived back at the office, we pulled 8 out of the 23 corporate head office staff into a room and let them all go. You can imagine the astonishment on their faces. You can also imagine the astonishment on the faces of the remaining people, when 8 of their fellow comrades had cleaned their desks out within 20 minutes!
We got to the end of the day, just Ken and I remained in the office. It was our bottom of the bottom. When you talk about being an entrepreneur, and how you really ride the roller coaster – lots of ups , lots of downs. This was the moment when we were at the bottom of the coaster. I laugh today when I tell this story. I say that if we there was a study of the worst leaders in Canada, we would have won, hands down!
”What do we do now?” I asked.
”I have no idea.”
So we resorted to what entrepreneurs often do best. We set a crazy goal without having any clue how we would reach it. It was Ken who said “let’s become the Top Place to Work in British Columbia within 4 years.” I laughed. I mean it was a crazy idea. There were approximately 10,000 companies in the province, all better then us!
Now, the one characteristic of an entrepreneur that stands out among the top in all of us? Resourcefulness. We figure out a way to get stuff done. So, in trying to figure out how to build the top company to work for, we realized something. We weren’t that smart. I mean we thought we were up to that point, but it obviously wasn’t right! So we embraced a philosophy, that I give credit to one of our mentors, Cameron Herold (who credits his mentor, Greg Clarke), founder of College Pro Painters) for helping us see the light. Everything has already been done. And someone out there has done it in a world class way. All you have to do is figure out who this is. And then go and do “R & D.” Not R & D in the “research and development” way. R&D in the “rip off and duplicate” way.
So we started to study. We studied companies that had built great brands, and great cultures. And studied some more. We became true students of business. And we started to find the answers.
We deployed this exact same strategy a few years later when we decided to franchise Nurse Next Door.
To be an entrepreneur, you need to be resourceful. You are not going to know all of the answers. In fact, you aren’t going to know many of the answers. And if you want to start building a great team, start looking for this trait in the people that you hire. It will make your life easier, and your company better.
Oh ya. We made the Top 10 Employer’s in B.C within 3 years, and were named the Top Employer in B.C within 5 years.
I have always set goals. When I was 12, I knew I wanted to play hockey at an Ivy League school. Either Cornell or Harvard. So I posted a picture of a Cornell hockey player (Joe Nieuwendyk) and a Harvard hockey player on my bathroom mirror. Along the way, I had a lot of offers, some quite lucrative (of course when you are 16, any kind of money is lucrative!) to play elsewhere, but I had a vision and nothing was getting in my way of it.
I went to Cornell. (Talk about Culture. Have you ever been to a Cornell hockey game? Here is a snapshot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BLCNm_9Ryk&NR=1. It is a one of a kind culture experience and is ultimately why I chose Cornell over all of the other schools)
As I got older, I forgot about this. I set goals, I created a life plan and even kept it in my wallet everywhere I went. But I would ultimately forget about some of the most important things that I wanted. Why? Because I couldn’t see them. When I was a teenager, I looked at the picture of those Ivy League hockey players every single day. I mean I couldn’t help it – they were always there, whether I realized it or not.
So two years ago, my wife Gayla and I decided to create our own painted pictures - in pictures. I replicated what was on my life plan in pictures. My dreams, my aspirations, my most important things in life – it was now in pictures. We framed them and hung them over our breakfast table.
Every morning , when I ate my cereal, I stared at my painted picture board. Again, not always because I meant to, it was just….there. And then things started to happen.
First, I had a dream to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. I had bought all of my gear right before we started Nurse Next Door, but of course, life caught up and I never made it. I posted 3 pictures of Kilimanjaro on my board. After staring at those pictures for a month, I knew what I had to do. I called 2 of my best friends up and asked if they were in. It was impractical- I had a 2 year old girl, I ran a fast growing company, I had a family – how could I take 3 weeks off and go to Africa?
And we did it. And since the time that I posted my personal painted picture up over my table, I have had more of my dreams and aspirations happen then ever before. Just as I did when I was a kid, my pictures started to come true.
Why does this work? It just does. I can’t explain it. Well actually I can, but you would probably get bored and tune out. So just trust me. It works. You gotta put it out there, and you gotta see it. Everyday.
And the best thing about putting it up in pictures so that everyone can see? Other people buy in. My wife was my biggest supporter. In fact, she was the one who bought me my tickets and all of my gear. (Remember, I was leaving her with our crazy (in a good way) 2 year old daughter Daisy for 3 weeks!) And she was following me every step of the way when I was climbing. Following my route, emailing me encouragement. Why?
Because she was part of the dream. She was involved. It wasn’t just mine anymore. It was our dream. She saw it up on my board everyday too. And she knew how important it was to me. And we made it happen together.
Go out and start sharing your dreams with those around you who love you and care.
There is a cool company in Vancouver called Lululemon. They create yoga wear, and have now expanded North American wide. They also have a cool culture, one built upon values, goals, a great manifesto, and I would add, inspiration. I have always admired how Chip Wilson, their founder (a good friend of Nurse Next Door and our key n0te speaker at last years annual Franchise Partner conference) has instilled in his company the principal that all employees must learn how to set personal goals, and then actually set them. Four times per year.
This summer, they launched their own “30 Day BHAG Challenge.” In case you have never read any of Jim Collins work, a BHAG means “Big Hairy Audacious Goal.” For this challenge, employees had to state their BHAG, and then start working towards accomplishing it. They had employees from all over North America set out to accomplish goals from running a half marathon to living everything inside their manifesto to becoming a certified yoga instructor at an ashram in India.
At Nurse Next Door, we do something similar through our dreams program. If you walk into our office you will see every employee’s top dream for the year on our “Dream Wall” and most employees will have their own personal painted pictures or vision boards on their desks.
As employers, I think we have a duty to help make an impact on our employees personal development and lives, and what better way to do it then teach people how to set and accomplish a goal or a dream.
I used to think Core values were a bunch of airy fairy la la land words that Dilbert made fun of. And there were a few reasons for this:
- There are far too many bland, empty, toothless core value statements that adorn the walls of companies across North America
- There are far too few companies who actually do anything with their core values. That is, they don’t live them.
And the truth is, your core values mean nothing if you don’t work to bring them alive. In fact they work against you. Empty value statements that aren’t lived creates cynical employees and it undermines your leadership credibility.
So what stops us from bringing our core values alive inside of our companies?
- We don’t know how to. There is no guidebook on how to live your core values. Jim Collins in Built to Last told us that we needed them, but didn’t tell us how the great companies practiced them.
- Living your core values takes guts. The bottom line is that, when properly practiced, values inflict pain. Why? Because if you pick the right core values, it will actually limit you in what you can do. Remember, your core values are your non negotiable rules of how things are done in your company. They are the rules that will guide the actions of you and your employees.
Walt Disney said that when your core values are clear, decisions become easy. That is true, except for one thing: It may be clear to know what you should do, but do you actually have the guts to do it? What decisions should you be making now but are avoiding? How will this affect your culture if you don’t do it?
Aug 10
11
Why I Love Our Core Values
At Nurse Next Door, we LOVEour Core Values. We will only select franchise partners who LOVE them; we will only hire employees who LOVE them; and we will only work with suppliers who LOVE them. Yes, you could say that we are fanatical about our core values.
Now that we have 40 franchise locations across Canada, and 1000’s of employees, it is vital that we maintain this passion. To help us communicate what our core values really mean to us, we took a day and shot a video. It’s not fancy – we didnt use scripts and we literally took a hand held camera and filmed.
And we started by asking a simple question: What core value do you love the most and why? Take a look – it is now played at every employee orientation across the country and is a great way to communicate what is important to you and your company.
Aug 10
4
Death By Meeting
Meetings. Who likes them? Do you actually accomplish things in meetings? I just read a great post Schedule Another Meeting? You’ve Got to Be Kidding! It reminded me of how much I think most of the meetings we do are a waste of time. And of money.
One of my mentors, Cameron Herold, taught me a great outline of what every meeting should look like:
• State the purpose
• State the outcome
• Have a clear agenda: no agenda, no attenda!
I will add a few more:
• Start it on an odd time. For example, we host our daily huddle at 10:54. Why? Because if we did at 11, then people would come late. By having it an odd time, you are forced to look at the clock.
• Always have a Triple “W” list. I learned this from another mentor Verne Harnish. Who will do What by When. If you have a meeting where you don’t have a need for this, then you shouldn’t have had the meeting.
• Always ask: do we really need to have this meeting?
Now this doesn’t mean not to have meetings. In fact, if done properly, they save a lot of time.
At Nurse Next Door, we try to follow a pretty strict meeting rhythm. Monday mornings are dedicated to meetings. Nothing else. We try to get ALL of our meetings for the week done by Monday afternoon. Then we are freed up to actually work. And we stick to it. No one will book appointments outside of our office on a Monday morning.
I just have to have even more discipline to say “no” to meeting requests outside of this time.
Death by Meeting is a book written by Pat Lencioni that I highly recommend to alleviate the meeting doldrums and actually make meetings work for you.
I am a big believer in the concept of “what gets measured gets managed.” So when I talk about measuring our core values, I am surprised at how often I am met with a blank stare. By figuring out how to measure them, you start to take your core values from being “airy fairy” concepts that you just talk about to making them actions that you are held accountable too. And they become real.
One of our core values at Nurse Next Door is “Wow Customer Service.” We measure how we are living this core value daily by using the Net Promoter Score, a customer service scoring system designed by Fred Reichheld. Every single day, at our morning 7 minute huddle (a stand up meeting that everyone has to attend), we review our customer service score for the day, and if any “promoter” scores or “detractor” scores occurred on the previous day.
This system not only holds our people and our franchise partners accountable to this core value, but it causes us to talk about it on a daily basis. By doing this, we are ensuring that “Wow Customer Service” is always front and centre every single day.
Shouldn’t this be the way that core values are lived?
Jul 10
23
Making Dreams Happen
We just finished our day and a half long culture session here at Nurse Next Door, and had 17 amazing companies – entrepreneurs and their teams – out to learn, share and discuss how to create an amazing culture.
There were some amazing moments, but some of the best learning came from our dreams section. Here at Nurse Next Door, we have a pretty cool program called the “Dreams” program. It is simple. In order for us to really live one of our Core Values of “Admire People“, we have designed a program to help inspire our employees to dream. And not only inspire them, but to also help them take action to achieve them.
In December, we decided to make one of our Ontario in – home caregivers, Lorell Chrysler, dreams come true. Her dream was to visit Prince Edward Island, with her sister, to re – live a memory of their Mom, who she took care of until she passed away. Lorell, and her sister, recently completed her dream, with the help of Nurse Next Door Heart Quarters and our Oakville location. It is an amazing story, and it goes to show just how powerful helping someone dream can be and what an impact it can have on their life.
It is also a great example of how powerful this can be on a company culture. We have had our dreams program in place for over two years, but we officially kicked it off in October when I completed one of my dreams – climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. Now, we are helping our team members (3,000 and counting) and franchise partners (40 and counting)across Canada to not only dream but to also make them happen.
Jul 10
14
Do You Interview for Culture Fit?
At Nurse Next Door, we have added a second component in our hiring process to ensure culture fit. As both franchise and non-franchise businesses grow quickly, most don’t do accurate planning or bench building (the process where you are constantly look for people who could at some point, join your team), and hence fall behind in their hiring.
All of a sudden a hiring need comes up. And now you, or your hiring manager is under the gun from all angles: from you, the entrepreneur, who just wants the job done; and from their team, who are struggling with the over work load. So what do most managers and entrepreneurs do? They hire quickly. They fill the seat. And this is exactly where things start to unravel in a fast growing company. How do I know? Because I have lived it, and survived, to come out the other end to now talk about it.
So here is what we have now added to our hiring process. During the second interview, once the manager who is doing the hiring has finished, a second person from our company comes in. And they only look for ONE thing: culture fit. They ask a series of questions to determine if that candidate is a core value match.
If that person finds a “mis match”, they can trump the person who is accountable for the hire. No questions asked.
Why have we done this? It prevents the hiring manager from hiring for speed vs hiring for fit. It keeps them honest. We all cave to pressure at times, and this avoids caving to pressure.
Wait to great. Easy to say, incredibly hard to do. Are your systems set up to ensure this happens?
Imagine what our franchise system would look like if we didn’t screen for culture fit?
Jul 10
6
What Does Culture Really Mean?
I was asked the other day “So what does culture really mean?”
I talk a lot about how important it is ( well, I really say that it is the most important thing in building your business). And I try to live it – at Nurse Next Door, it is our # 1 priority. But I guess I should back up a bit.
Culture is:
A gentle powerful force that will nudge you to comply with how we do things around here -(or not so gently!)
How you and the employees in your company act, on a day to day basis; It is how you act in a crisis moment, when the odds are stacked up against you; and it is how you act when you and your company are on top of the world.
How you make your employees really happy (or not!). Of course if you succeed, your happy employees will a) make you happy; and b) make your customers happy. So it really is a win- win for you to build a great culture.
Culture works in a similar way to how bee’s are attracted to honey – they flock their in droves because that is what they love and are passionate about.
Culture should attract the right people, and completely repel the wrong people. (This is a great thing, because you DON’T want the wrong people working in your company!)
Culture is an ever present powerful force that works behind the scenes – you cant necessarily see it – but you can sure feel it. Try walking into your office – what does it feel like? Are your people energized? Are they passionate about what they are doing? That is culture at work – good and bad. Do they love working there? Do they enjoy the people around them?
Your culture makes you unique, and enables you to excel at what you do (well, that is, if you make it a priority and create a great one!)
If you would like to learn how to build culture in your business, look into our Culture Seminar which takes place in Vancouver, BC.
Nurse Next Door Franchise
About John DeHart
Prior to Nurse Next Door, John launched and cofounded a number of early-stage, hitech companies, but he left this lucrative industry in search of something more meaningful.
After taking significant time off, John re-entered the business world with a mission: to create a leading brand in the healthcare industry that would build upon the foundation of core purpose, core values and the envisioned future.Nurse Next Door on
Back by popular demand. A culture workshop with @johnbrucedehart: http://ow.ly/2zfAp
16 hours ago from HootSuite
#FF Friends: @seray, @simplydotca, @linzyw, @nursenextdoor, @aircanadavac, @chatwireless, @harbourairltd, @chaptersindigo, @hmvdigitalca!
17 hours ago from HootSuite John's Blog: The # 1 Trait of an Entrepreneur (and Successful Franchise Owner) http://ow.ly/18QQvf
18 hours ago from HootSuite Seniors resist help at home (and what to do about it) from today's Toronto Star: http://ow.ly/2z7df
19 hours ago from HootSuite-
RSS
Newsletter
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
Flickr
YouTube
