Part 7 in the video series. Subscribe for email alerts when more videos are posted.
More from this series:
Creating Corporate Culture – Part 1
Creating Corporate Culture – Part 2
Creating Corporate Culture – Part 3
Creating Corporate Culture – Part 4
Creating Corporate Culture – Part 5
Creating Corporate Culture – Part 6
John Assaraf sat down with Steven Cox, CEO of TakeLessons.com, to discuss what it means to create and maintain a thriving corporate culture. In this interview, Cox defines corporate culture, outlines steps entrepreneurs can take to define their company’s culture and shows how a strong culture can translate into other great gains for any organization.
Assaraf: So before you get into that, Kristen, does anyone have any questions so far? I want this to be about learning and part of learning is also understanding. So, does anyone have any questions? If you do, let’s take one or two questions right now. If you don’t, then we’ll let Steven keep going. Kristen?
Kristen: Yes, we have a question from Evan. He says, who defines the culture, the directors or the directors along with the employees?
Cox: That’s a great, great question Evan. How many employees does Evan have, do we know?
Assaraf: It’s hard to get a feel for that.
Cox: It’s interesting because we’ve just asked this question again now that we’re at several hundred employees. I personally believe that there is a core group of people that starts by defining what those value systems are and they’re the ones who kind of set the pace for everybody else. They’re the leaders in the company. Then what happens is, folks coming in later have to believe that value system right from the beginning. We don’t teach people Ownership Mentality; they either have it or they don’t. We don’t teach people that you need to constantly improve. The people that come into our company, they want to come in because what they tell us is, these are things that I already believe anyway.
A: If you want to know about the Law of Attraction, for all you “Attractionaires” out there, that’s the Law of Attraction at it’s very finest. You define your nucleus and find people who that resonates with; that’s already what they’re doing and thinking and behave like and that’s the core of resonance right there.
C: Right. Now Evan, the second part of this is there’s a value system and then there’s a set of behaviors that help shape those value systems. And what we believe as a company and what’s right for us is we’ve established a value system that will not change and that we won’t deviate from. Within those value systems, there are behaviors and there’s changes in the marketplace. With every new person coming in, what happens is they adhere to the value system but then they’re free to create their individuality within that. So what we look for are people who naturally believe the value system. Then out of that, we get a tremendous level of creativity within this value system. So we’ve provided the guard rails, and the amount of beautiful activity that happens within the guard rails is exceptional. We do things that I never thought of. Our best ideas, how we embrace that culture and how we enforce that culture does not even come from me now. It comes from some of the employees that are working closest with the customer. Everyone gets their say in what that is without the movement of the structure. Does that make sense?
A: Totally. Hopefully that answers your question. Do we have another one?
Kristen: Yeah, we have another one from Richard. What if I want to keep my company’s personnel size small. I do not want to create a large corporate job for myself.
C: The rules still stay, if it’s a five, ten person company.
A: Even three or four.
C: Yes, three or four. Find three or four people that absolutely resonate with your reason for being, with your own value system. And again, the number doesn’t matter; it gets tougher to do with more people. But the idea is that you’re true to your nucleus. You’re true to your core. And all three, four, four hundred people, the number doesn’t matter, are all moving in the same direction based on a value system that you can all get behind.
A: Awesome. Thank you so much Richard. Let’s let you continue some of your core values, how you designed this and what’s happening with the company.
C: Sure. So our first core value is Ownership Mentality, and what that basically means is we look for people who treat the company as if it were their own. We reinforce that with the idea that you are responsible for your own actions and you are responsible for making sure that the company is growing in the manner that it should. The way we reinforce that is that at any given point in the company, if someone sees something that’s out of line or out of whack with our value system, they have the right as well as the obligation to speak up and say something. So it’s not a hierarchical system where people can’t come to me and say that I’m full of crap. Because they can if they really believe that. Ultimately, you are responsible for the results of the company. That means if you see a piece of trash laying on the ground, you pick it up. Why? Because that’s what owners do. You do not punch a clock. Why? Because owners don’t punch the clock. And we look for people who share those same values, that are looking for that entrepreneurial spirit. This whole idea was formed because we wouldn’t have been in business early if we didn’t find people who had that natural ownership ability. So that’s why it was very key to us and it’s just been resonating throughout the company.
More from this series:
Creating Corporate Culture – Part 1
Creating Corporate Culture – Part 2
Creating Corporate Culture – Part 3
Creating Corporate Culture – Part 4