Video transcript:
Some of you know that I’m a musician on the side. I’ve been playing professionally for 25 years, from Los Angeles to San Francisco to Austin to Denver. Those bands played clubs, parties, corporate events, weddings and even a few festivals through the years.
Most bands — like many workplaces — are not fully functional. There’s frequent drama, frustration, back-stabbing and worse.
I refused to work in drama-ridden bands. Just as I help leaders sustain purposeful, positive, productive work environments, I couldn’t help myself. I applied our culture change process to the bands I was in! I facilitated discussions with everyone — players, sound pros, even roadies — to clarify our servant purpose, values and behaviors that helped ensure people were respectful to each other AND delivered on their performance requirements.
It worked most of the time, which was MUCH better than existing in a toxic band culture. Sometimes, players would self-select out of the band. That’s OK. When we recruited replacements, we’d make our expectations crystal clear — and most everyone embraced them.
When people did not align with our ground rules, we coached them. Some responded to coaching. Some did not. We didn’t get mad at them — we simply agreed that this was not the right fit for them. We lovingly set those folks free. We cycled through four musicians in the first five years. We held firm to our ideal band culture.
Over time, we had the right players in our band.
As I was building my boutique consulting business, I kept this goal top of mind: get the right players in the band. I formalized our firm’s organizational constitution: servant purpose, values and measurable behaviors. We screened every potential employee and contractor to gain their commitment to follow our constitution in daily interactions.
If anyone struggled to align or to deliver results as promised, we coached them. If they didn’t align, we set them free.
If you want a vibrant, uncompromising work culture, you should be equally diligent about defining your ideal culture and then aligning players, plans, decisions and actions to that ideal.
Over time, you’ll have the right players in your band.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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