Implementing a new culture will only work if everybody is on the same page. Discover how to transform your culture and move it in a positive direction.

Making a big change, like instilling a new culture in your company, can be the greatest decision you’ll ever make. 

Or it can spell disaster of colossal proportions. Especially if you don’t have the proper processes in place.

Let me tell you a story about one of our clients.

Heaven’s Pets is a pet cremation company in New Orleans. They also offer memorialization services for grieving pet owners.

It’s one of two primary companies doing so and serving the metropolitan area. It even acquired 50% of the market share in the New Orleans area between 2008 and 2018.

But it all changed when a national competitor entered the market in 2018.

The competitor, Gateway Inc., acquired the other company Agee’s Pet Crematorium. And that’s when things took a turn for the worst.

The company received the bulk of its business from veterinary clinic referrals. But those clinics stopped sending business their way after Gateway Inc. entered the market.

Faced with strong competition, Heaven’s Pets responded by drastically dropping prices. They also expanded to prepare for the expected volume.

But it didn’t go as well as they planned.

The first half of 2019 saw a drop in revenue and net income compared to the same period of the previous year. The company was hemorrhaging money and couldn’t stem the flow.

This is when David Paul stepped in.

The team at David Paul worked with the board of directors and the CEO of Heaven’s Pets to figure out what they needed and how to get there.

One of the ways to accomplish the company’s initiative was to implement management systems that aligned with the company goals.

First, the company leadership created a scorecard. They checked in weekly to make sure that everything was accountable, and that they all followed processes.

Individual employees also received scorecards to ensure accountability. They attended weekly meetings to ensure that everything moved along towards the company’s initiative.

This was just one piece of the puzzle that steered Heaven’s Pets in the right direction. Maybe it’s what you also need right now.

Find out more about creating new management systems and integrating them into your company.

How the Culture of Your Business Needs to Change

Changing the culture in your business is never easy. Nor is it a simple thing.

There are many risks involved with making such a momentous change. And so many things can go wrong.

Yet, a culture change needs to happen for businesses to thrive.

Gone is the old way of thinking wherein growth and competition were key. Instead, businesses need to look at the broader picture. And that includes creating a culture of collaboration, sustainability, and stability.

It also means focusing on and delivering higher levels of performance than ever before to remain relevant in today’s market.

You may think that your employees are your greatest asset. But, how far are you willing to go to ensure they perform at optimal levels?

It all starts with a cultural transformation.

Let me warn you, these changes aren’t easy. But they are necessary.

The changes begin on a fundamental level. You need to change the way you think about culture as it applies to business and implement those changes in leadership behavior.

But it goes a little deeper than that, too.

To truly transform your culture, you need to prepare for changes in the fundamentals of your organizational structure.

Transforming Your Culture

Are you ready to take the plunge?

Before you do, here are some tips to ensure a smoother transition.

Tip #1 – Put an End to the Blame Game

How often has something gone wrong at work and you immediately looked for someone to blame?

If something goes wrong, it must be somebody’s fault. Someone wasn’t paying attention, lost focus, or simply wasn’t “enough” for the task.

The fact is, blaming someone is counterproductive.

Anybody on the receiving end of blame immediately goes on the defensive. And defensiveness is not conducive to achieving goals.

Playing the blame game is part of company culture. Despite companies saying that it needs to stop, no one really does anything to prevent it.

If you want to move forward into a future built on aspiration and hope, you can’t keep looking back on the past and the fear that it evokes. Which is exactly what playing the blame game does.

Fear of blame inhibits growth.

If you have inefficient systems in place, you won’t know it in a blame culture. It blocks out things like honest recognition and acknowledging things that need to change in a system. And you certainly can’t make any system adjustments if people are too afraid to give accurate feedback.

It seems like an easy thing to do, but you may find that it’s one of the hardest to eradicate from your culture. Ending this cycle of blame requires an intentional focus on positive movement if you want anything to change.

Tip #2 – Focus on Personal Responsibility (Particularly with Yourself)

If you’re a parent, you try to prepare your children for the world. But no matter how much you want to, you can never fully prepare a child for the world they will eventually live in.

It’s unpredictable.

One of the best things that you can do is teach your children personal responsibility for the choices that they make. And it’s a lesson that many adults can embrace as well.

We live in a world of unpredictability. There’s no amount of schooling, work experience, or life experience that can ever fully prepare us for what we may encounter. 

That’s a scary place to be.

While we can’t control the external factors of our lives, we can enact internal changes that will help us prepare for change. Honing our own flexibility and adaptability can help us cope with whatever life throws at us.

Whether it’s a culture change in a business or lifestyle changes in our personal lives, we all need to take personal responsibility. The way we act and react to these changes is the only thing we have control over.

And it’s key to survival in a brand new business culture.

Tip #3 – Understand the Performance Curve (And Where Your Team Operates on It)

One way to understand the level where your team operates is by using the Performance Curve. This useful tool can tell you a variety of things, like the cultural ethos and mindset of a company.

The Performance Curve has four performance measurements:

• Low
• Low-Medium
• Medium-High
• High

These are directly linked to the four mindset measurements in the curve:

• Impulsive
• Dependent
• Independent (Medium-High)
• Independent (High)

Each of these levels can tell you the prevailing cultural mindset, as well as the common characteristics at each level.

For example, an Impulsive mindset in a Low-performance team may carry the attitude that “whatever happens, happens.”

On the other hand, teams with an Independent mindset and High-performance levels operate at higher levels. They may show high awareness and responsibility for others and exhibit the same awareness about themselves.

Using the tool, you can home in on your team’s mindset and also see the direct link between it and performance. When you’re aware of this current mindset, you can choose to change it.

Tip #4 – Check Your Own Behavior

As the leader of your organization, you can influence cultural changes positively, as well as negatively. Everybody watches what you do and that effect trickles down throughout your employees.

Let’s look at the Performance Curve again to see this in action.

If you have an Impulsive mindset, you may leave your employees with frustration, confusion, and stress. They don’t know what you’re going to do next and that leaves them in an endless state of uncertainty.

But if you have an Independent mindset, you may see more individuals accomplishing goals. You’ll also see that your employees are more likely to utilize teamwork to accomplish those goals. And that every individual employee is accountable.

Every decision that you make lends to the atmospheric culture of your company. And your employees, in turn, follow your lead.

So, it’s within your power to transform company culture. But you need to watch your own behavior, too.

Get Ready for a Transformation

Taking strategic action is not enough for you to keep up in today’s competitive market. You also need to invest in the individual performance of each team member. 

And to do that, you need to create a new culture in your company.

Yes, that may mean starting at the foundations of your company. But these changes can help move your business in a positive direction and keep your team performing at optimal levels.

Like Heaven’s Pets, you can’t enact change unless you have the right system in place. And you can’t implement a system until you can make an honest assessment of the one you have now.

Cultivating cultures of fear and blame are the mindsets of the past. 

If you want to push towards a better future for your company, you need to get ready for a transformation.