5 Pro Tips For Creating Positive Culture

In the November issue, Eric Anderson “confessed” that culture eats strategy. He paraphrased Peter Drucker’s 1954 book. The Practice Of Management, which suggests no matter how good your strategic plan may be, it won’t be effective unless the employees buy into the same business culture. This can be particularly true in the passion-driven powersports market! What Anderson and Drucker didn’t define in that November column is what is company culture?

Company culture refers to the attitudes and behaviors of a company and its employees. It is evident in the way that people interact with each other, the values they hold, and the decisions they make. In some cases culture can even be seen and felt by customers. Conversely, a toxic culture can destroy your company from within. Company culture encompasses a variety of things, including work environment, company mission, leadership style, values, ethics, expectations and goals.

Note: a unified culture is the common vision of all members of the team — not solely your vision. Ask employees to anonymously or describe your business in one word. What word would they use to describe your dealership or company? Fun, Challenging, Friendly, Engaging, Rewarding, Flexible, Supportive, Exciting, Caring, Family, Professional, Busy, Fast Paced, Teamwork, Motivating, Positive? It’s the social operating system that influences how your employees work with each other, customers, and the community. It has both the potential to help a company thrive or cause it to suffer.

If you’re an owner, GM or even HR, part of your job should be to work on improving your company culture. However good company culture doesn’t happen by itself. It takes some planning and effort. In my 30 years in the industry I have seen companies with amazing culture ruined by leadership. I have experienced Fun, Challenging, Engaging, Family, Teamwork culture and sometimes all of those at one company. Rather than focus on what went wrong, let’s talk about some best practices to improve workplace culture.

1) Build Strong Relationships With Employees

You can even start this list without leadership being at the top of the list. Leadership is the foundation for a meaningful employee experience. Leaders play a big role in shaping culture. If the link between leaders and employees is weak or negative, employees will be disconnected from other aspects of culture as well.

Here is a pro tip: get to know your employees on a personal level. Leaders who talk “with” employees instead of “to” employees elevate the employee experience and help form the basis of a good workplace culture. When this happens, employees feel more appreciated and supported, and feel like they belong in the organization. Make sure your department managers/leaders know how to mentor and motivate their employees, instead of just being their boss.

2) Connect Your People To A Purpose

Connecting employees to a purpose is a powerful way to improve workplace culture. Remember that purpose is different from mission, strategy, or values. Mission is what you do. Strategy is how you will meet your goals. Values are behaviors you want your employees to live by. But purpose is why you do all of these things. Your mission, strategy, and values are all secondary to your purpose.

Another strategy is to help current employees see how their work contributes to the organization’s purpose. The best way to do this is to communicate it clearly and often. When employees see reminders of their organization’s purpose throughout the workplace, they are 30% more likely to believe their organization inspires employees to work towards a common goal.

Connecting both current and potential employees to your organization’s purpose is a critical step to improve workplace culture.

3) Encourage Employee Recognition

You don’t need to be Peter Drucker to know nothing can increase workplace culture more substantially than employee recognition.

How do you define recognition? There is a difference between “appreciation” and employee “recognition.” Appreciation is feeling valued for one’s unique point of view, attitude, talents, and contributions. Recognition, on the other hand, is the action of showing appreciation.

When employers regularly show appreciation for their employees, a lot of good things happen. One of the positive things is rising employee engagement. While I was researching this topic i learned that 78% of employees say they are highly engaged when they feel strong recognition from their organizations. Compare that to just 34% of employees who feel highly engaged in companies with weak recognition.

Recognition also carries many other benefits as well. Like attracting talent, retaining talent, increased job performance and stimulating more innovation. It’s such a vital component to building or improving workplace culture. I encourage you to google search for creative ways to show employee appreciation.

4) Open Up Transparency And Communication

An important measure of the heart and soul of a company’s organizational culture is the way its people communicate with each other. It’s not only the content of the communications, it’s the way leaders and teams choose how to communicate sends a message in itself.

One of my favorites and the approach I practice myself is more of a team approach to leadership… one that includes more transparency and feedback. Transparency is a business strategy about communication that applies to the entire organization, not just to upper management or decision makers.

What’s the advantage of a team approach to transparency? It deals with not only how leaders interact with employees, it describes how all leaders and employees can communicate more openly with each other to breed more trust throughout an organization. This openness leads to greater collaboration, mentorship, and inspiration. Just watch the show Ted Lasso on Apple TV, for a prime example of team approach to leadership with transparency and communication.

On the other hand, companies that held back and failed to communicate had fewer positive feelings. Even worse, less than transparent organizations risk damaging their cultures and losing good employees. When transparency is not part of a company’s goals, the culture suffers.

Departments can foster transparency by holding an honest team review once a month or after an open house, or events, where team members can talk about success and failure as a team—without singling out individuals. Sharing honest, critical feedback with each other drastically increases the odds of having a psychologically safe company culture.

MIJ Industry #PROfiles

Dealernews is honored to work with Motorcycle Industry Jobs to recognize the people who make up this great industry. “When you start reading the Industry #PROfles, you will notice that 80-90% of them get their start at a motorcycle dealership,” says MIJ founder Alex Baylon. “The dealers are on the front lines and have always been the heart and soul of the industry. Without motorcycle dealerships, most of us wouldn’t be where we are today, so part of our message is always going to be ‘support your local motorcycle shop.’”

In addition to recognizing industry pros, Dealernews is also working with MIJ to create a job ticker tape of the latest positions opening in the industry at the Dealernews.com site. Check it out at: www.dealernews.com/Industry-Jobs

“Tell us your story,” adds Baylon. “We would love to feature you! Click here to fill out the questionnaire: www.motorcycleindustryjobs.com/industry-profiles/

5) Give teams the autonomy they seek

Give your department managers autonomy. Giving team members this kind of self-governing power is one of the keys to building a culture of teamwork and contribution. Rather than having them micromanage their teams (like setting goals for instead of with them), but by setting the tone and expectations for how the teams function, leaders can build great teams that encourage autonomy.

Teams don’t always need to be told what to do. They need guidance. Good leaders know how to inspire, mentor, trust, and connect with their teams. They know how to get to know and treat their team members as people.

In the typical work environment, it’s important for team members to influence the direction of ongoing projects and assignments. If teams can’t set their own goals, make important decisions, and decide how to manage projects without constant leader direction, then they will feel less likely to collaborate together and share ideas.

It’s time to build your culture!

Building and improving your workplace culture does not happen overnight. It takes a commitment to understand your current culture climate and then implement the types of strategies that will be most effective in improving the culture in your organization. As mentioned, the formula for success is different for everyone.

But keep in mind, building a culture of engaged, productive, and happy employees beats the best failed strategy!

MotorcycleIndustryJobs.com founder Alex Baylon has been hiring and firing people in the powersports industry for 25 years.

Currently with a major distributor, he has also been with Dragon Alliance, Ceet Racing, MX GP Services in Europe, Acerbis USA, Motonation/Sidi Boots and Scott USA. He started MIJ as he saw a need in the industry for people who are passionate about the motorcycle industry to have an employment outlet. The motorcycle industry like many others has always recycled employees from one company to another and it has always been done by word of mouth. MIJ allows companies in the industry to post their openings and give others in and out of the industry a chance to apply and insert new blood and fresh ideas in the many opportunities in the motorcycle industry.