Let me share something that happened last week. A business owner proudly told me about their "Culture Committee" that meets once a month to plan fun activities. My face said exactly what I was thinking. Would you only check your bank balance once a month? Would you only speak to your customers once a month? No? Then why would you only think about your culture once a month?!
Here's the truth bomb - culture isn't something you do, it's everything you do. It's:
- That email you sent at midnight (yes, that one)
- The way you handled that customer complaint yesterday
- How you responded when your team member made a mistake
- What you did when your top performer bullied their colleague
- The decisions you made in this morning's meeting
You can't clock in and out of culture. You can't put it on hold while you "focus on more important things." Because guess what? Your culture is working 24/7, whether you're paying attention to it or not!
Think about it like this - you wouldn't tell your heart to only beat on Wednesdays during the Culture Committee meeting. Culture is the heartbeat of your business. It keeps pumping life through your organization every minute of every day.
So here's my challenge to you:
- Delete your culture to-do list
- Stop thinking about culture as an activity
- Start seeing it in every decision you make
- Recognize that you're either building or destroying your culture with every action
Remember, while you're busy treating culture as a part-time job, your people are living it full-time.
Make it count!
