“When you believe something is profound in a company, you can not be a logical leader. You have to go to the lunatic fringe. There is no way that logic is what you need to change people.”  Jack Welch, past CEO General Electric

One of the first steps in operationalizing your Core Values in your culture? Get crazy about them.  

Your Core Values are the things you go to the Lunatic Fringe for. Why?  Because they will last forever.  Far longer then any strategy, any person you hire, or any best practice that you learn. So what does this mean for you?  Simple.  You just need to talk about our Core Values a lot.  And when you think you are talking about them a lot?  Talk about them some more.  When you do this, people know you are serious about them. You have to tell your employees a lot of things, so if you don’t constantly repeat your Core Values, they will not really understand what they are or how important they are in your organization.

When new Franchise Partners start, I tell them that this is really (besides trying to hire right!) all they need to do to start building a  culture that will get lead them down the path to becoming the # 1 employer in their city. So here are 3 simple things to start doing NOW to start building a  great culture:

 1.   Talk about them incessantly. Get crazy about them. Talk about them every single day, and frequently throughout the day. And when your people say “no more, I get it” , talk about them some more.

2. Learn how to incorporate our Core Values into praise.  Instead of saying “great work!” say “thanks for living our Core Value of Wowing Our Customers”

3. Weave them into your conversations.  Begin your weekly meetings with a story. Begin your offsite sessions with stories.  If you host daily huddles, bring them up here.  People will soon start to get it.   

But the key? Don’t stop. Don’t let it become a fad that you as the leader, start with and then forget in 3 months. It can’t work like that. Which leads me to #4:

4. Create a system for crazy. They say that habit is only create after doing something consistently for 2 to 3 months,  but is probably more.  Now to do this, you need a system. Otherwise, you will forget. Or you will go on vacation. Or you will actually do it for a year, or two, and then new people are hired and somewhere along the line it gets lost. That is where systems come in.

And yes, you can create a system for “crazy.”  Tune in next week to learn how!

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