Key questions to ask yourself today
Most of us admire what Steve Jobs built at Apple. Although it’s well known that employees found it challenging to work for him, what they didn’t find challenging was embracing his beliefs. His articulation and daily living of his beliefs is given much of the credit for Apple success. He knew that culture would be critical to future Apple success and knew that as the owner/CEO, his beliefs would set the tone for that culture.
He had 7 overarching beliefs and was able to attract and retain top talent because employees wanted to be part of something special. Beliefs such as, we will make products that change the world and design products that are simple versus complex (remember we used to read user manuals on new electronic products until Apple changed the game). Beliefs like these are what Apple employees rallied around and continue doing so to this day.
Unfortunately, what we often see in working with private businesses is they have stated beliefs/values but what they don’t do is live them every day. They live them when it’s convenient, not when it’s hard. Here are questions to discuss with your leadership team:
- Have we articulated what our beliefs are?
- Do we effectively communicate our beliefs to our employees?
- When we hire new employees, do we effectively orient them to our beliefs?
- Do we identify and praise when we see the beliefs exemplified? Do we react appropriately to modify behavior when we don’t see our beliefs exemplified?
- When we do employee performance reviews, do we discuss their performance in support of our company beliefs?
- Do we align any of our metrics with our beliefs? .ie.: we believe in making quality products or we want to provide an excellent customer experience – but do you truly have visible, effective metrics that convey to your team that you take the belief seriously?
If you want to ensure driving long term company results, think like Steve Jobs did. Think about what culture you want and how your personal beliefs will drive the behavior that underpin your culture. A company worth creating formula is Beliefs drive Behaviors and Behaviors drive Results. Revisit your company belief system and start driving new company worth today.
