Tristan

How to build a strong culture – start a museum!

 Culture  No Responses »
Feb 202012
 

Strong workplace cultures are built upon living a set of core values and sharing stories of those values being lived.  Every day new stories are created and it’s critical that those stories are shared. However, it’s often the stories from the very early days of a business that last the longest.

Recording, immortalising and retelling the stories from the startup days of your business could be the most powerful way to build a strong culture (and it’s never too late to start).

At The Physio Co, each room in our South Melbourne Support Office tells a story from the early days.  For example, ‘The George Garraway Room’ immortalises the memory of an elderly resident from the very first aged care home we ever visited (read the full story here). The John D Rockefeller Room tells the story of our commitment to simplifying our business and Mastering the Rockefeller Habits (full story here).  Naming rooms is just one way to tell stories and bring the past to life.

This year, I’ve started writing a regular letter to each member of The Physio Co family that’s posted in the mail and sent to each of their homes.  This letter is another great opportunity to tell stories from the early days.  For example, in my letter that went out last week I included this blast from the past:

From the TPC vault!
The line ‘We take the time to celebrate milestones & successes’ is part of The Physio Co’s core value of Be Memorable for lots of reasons.  One of those reasons is that I love birthdays.  Even more than birthdays, I love birthday cake!  In the early days of The Physio Co, when I worked full time as a hands-on physio in a heap of facilities, I’d find a way to sing happy birthday and eat cake as often as possible.  There are so many milestone birthdays happening in aged care facilities and I tried hard to never miss an 80th, 85th, 90th, 95th or my favourite, the 100th birthday!  So today, we all make sure we celebrate milestones and successes as often as possible.  I sure hope you make time to sing your little heart out and share a special birthday moment with your residents whenever you can!

The Physio Co Museum is yet to be opened, however, every year we are collecting as much history as we can including photos, old posters, logos, business cards, awards, t shirts, name badges and anything else we can remember.  One day we will immortalise it all in our very own museum.  In the mean time, telling stories is one of the most powerful ways to remember the past and we do that as often as possible.

Strong cultures have legendary stories that are told over and over.  What are you doing to capture your history?

Learn before you earn

 Culture  No Responses »
Feb 162012
 

An obsession with learning is one of the most common traits of successful leaders, sportspeople & entrepreneurs.  This week I’ve heard how two global entrepreneurs have leveraged other people’s experience to grow their businesses through an obsession with reading.

Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos is an avid reader.  Tony strongly encouraged  all of the early Zappos employees to read key books from the Zappos library.  These days Tony continues to read and Zappos now holds classes on those important books for it’s staff. ‘Pursue growth and learning’ is one of the core values that Zappos’ famous culture is based on and they sure seem to be living it.

The quote ‘learn before you earn’ is a catch cry of Brad Sugars (he’s got a lot of sayings!).  Brad, founder of ActionCOACH who reads one non-fiction book every week, reckons that unless you first learn how to play a bigger game, you’ll never pull it off. Over 15 years, Sugars claims to have read more than 1200 books.  

I too have a goal to read a book a week, but I haven’t been hitting it.  I definitely need to lift my reading consistency.  How about you?

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**This post is from the 2012 series ‘What I’ve learnt this week’. If you’d like to receive these and other Culture is Everything posts in your email, subscribe here.

Time to dump your mentor?

 Culture  No Responses »
Feb 152012
 

This is part of the weekly ‘Ask Tristan’ series. If you have a question, please email me: asktristan@thephysioco.com.au

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Q: Dear Tristan, I am the owner of a small business that has grown considerably in the last 18 months.  Since starting the business 5 years ago I’ve had a mentor who has been with me every step of the way. But, I think she might now be holding me back.  When I’ve got great new ideas, she always asks questions that stop me in my tracks.  I’m not sure we are aligned to the same future any more.  What should I do? – WK

A: Dear WK,

Firstly, congrats on starting a business and growing it over 5 years, that’s a fantastic achievement!

Now, regarding this mentor, they’re supposed to ask the hard questions!  Some of the best mentors I’ve had have both supported and challenged me.  As entrepreneurs, we think of ideas that could create huge value everyday.  However, only a few of these ideas are any good!  It’s the less entrepreneurial people that we need to stress-test these ideas, ask questions and potentially poke holes in them.  The best ideas survive this testing and are the ones we should pursue (most of the time, sometimes it’s worth some risk on a crazy idea!).

By the same token, I’ve found that most mentor-mentee relationships often have a use-by date.  You’ve been with your mentor for 5 years, in that time you and your business will have both grown and changed a lot.  Has your mentor grown too?  If not, perhaps you need to consider someone new that has been where you are going?

My advice: have an honest conversation with your mentor about how she sees the future of your business.  If you are not on the same page anymore, it’s best you both realise this and respectfully part company.  Perhaps she actually wants to leave and will be relieved when you suggest different directions?

Whatever the outcome, make sure your mentor knows how grateful you are for all of their help and support.  If you couldn’t have done it without her help, make sure she knows it!

Good luck,

TW

Need more time? Here’s how a strong culture can help

 Culture  No Responses »
Feb 142012
 

This is the first of my monthly posts for Dynamic Business magazine…

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A strong culture creates time in your day.

Lack of time is the biggest problem facing most small business owners. Why? Because their entire business resolves around them.  I was exactly the same, but I found a solution. Creating a strong family culture has changed my life.

As the founder of a small business, I have a huge amount of ambition, drive and curiosity to create something special.  In the early days, my ambition caused some big problems.  Fortunately my curiosity and drive also saved me.

From 2004 to 2008, I grew a business from start-up to a small team of 20 people that was profitable, sustainable and even won a few awards.  But I was stuck. I had built myself a job and the entire business relied on me.  I needed a way out.

Read the rest of this post HERE at Dynamic Business…

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NB – Culture is Everything TV will return next Tuesday

What’s TW up to? Feb 14-20

 Culture  No Responses »
Feb 132012
 

In short, here’s my week. I’m..

Energised - by finishing my first Olympic distance triathlon yesterday!

Pleased – to be sharing To The Point with Steven (a member of the Culture is Everything community) tomorrow morning

Excited - about The Physio Co family’s first 2012 Learning Event, ‘Helping oldies with Delirium, Dementia & Depression’ on Tuesday. (Join us if you’d like..!)

Attending - a free ‘Business is Booming’ event by Brad Sugars. (Interested? Sign up here)

Improving - the way we make Culture is Everything TV. (No episode this week, it’ll back with a couple of changes next Tuesday).

Focussed - on improving my presentation skills in session 2 of The Physio Co’s program with Communicators Melbourne

Learning – from a master! I’m attending a Business Chicks workshop with Tony Hsieh of Zappos on Thursday. (Awesome!)

Training –  3 hours in the pool, 7 on the bike & 5 hours on foot this week.  Only 12 weeks until Ironman Australia! 

Helping – to organise a long lunch for my good mate Mike before his big wedding day!

Living your core values – it’s the small things..

 Culture  No Responses »
Feb 132012
 

Businesses based upon living a set of core values often have the very best workplace cultures.  The way those values are lived everyday is what builds the strong culture.  Importantly, the very smallest gesture that lives a core value can make the biggest impact.

At The Physio Co, one of our core values is Be Memorable.  This value guides us to be ‘friendly and make positive first impressions.’  One small way that our team lives this value is in our emails.  Since 2009, The Physio Co support team have all had “Have a great day” as the way we sign off from every email. 

This very small change has had a huge impact on many.  People continue to notice it, mention it and associate it with The Physio Co. Three years on, these four words continue to live our Be Memorable value and reinforce to everyone that we are a positive and welcoming family. 

What small change could you make today that will live your values and build a stronger team?

Lesson learned – “Keep Calm & Carry On”

 Culture  No Responses »
Feb 092012
 

We’ve had a couple of bumps in the road at The Physio Co this week.  Nothing too serious, a client made a decision we didn’t agree with, a recent hire departed and our damn phones stopped working!

In the past, problems like these would have troubled me a lot. I probably would’ve lost sleep, I definitely would’ve had a headache and it’s likely a few more grey hairs would have appeared!  But not so much this time.  Why?  Two reasons:

  1. I’m confident that we have the right people on our team to get where we need to go in the long term; &
  2. I’ve learnt that, as hard as we try, sometimes things go wrong and we just have to learn from them.

As we prepare to celebrate our 8th birthday, it seems that The Physio Co is growing up – that’s a fantastic feeling!

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**This post is from the 2012 series ‘What I’ve learnt this week’. If you’d like to receive these and other Culture is Everything posts in your email, subscribe here.

Why you always need two interviews for recruitment

 Culture  No Responses »
Feb 082012
 

This is part of the weekly ‘Ask Tristan’ series. If you have a question, please email me: asktristan@thephysioco.com.au

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Q: Dear Tristan, help! I’m having big problems retaining staff. I honestly think that I am providing the training and support that they need. But, a majority of new staff are leaving within 3-12 months. What can I do? – CT.

A: Dear CT,

Great question and whatever you do please don’t accept what’s happening as the norm. You can get this right!

Now, perhaps the reason that some people are leaving is that you’re not selecting the right ones in the first place? It’s unlikely that you will be able to retain staff if they’re not the right culture-fit for your team.

At The Physio Co, our approach to assessing whether someone is the next TPCer is mainly about culture-fit. We are laser-focussed on whether every applicant can not only live our core values everyday, but, whether they can do it effortlessly. In effect, we’re looking for people who have very similar personal values to our core values.

To assess culture fit, it takes time and I don’t think it’s possible to get it right in just one interview. In fact, The Physio Co uses a rigorous 6-step selection process that includes at least 2 face-to-face interviews. Selection is much like a courting process and committing to marriage after just one date is crazy! If the first interview goes well, ask them on another one. If the second interview goes well and they fit all the criteria your looking for in a long term partner, only then would I consider a relationship.

In my experience, selection is the place to start reviewing if you’re having retention problems.

Good luck,

Tristan

http://youtu.be/Sy6Cww9oock Why you need to praise your staff every day Culture is Everything TV – E

 Culture  No Responses »
Feb 072012
 

Why you need to praise your staff every day

Culture is Everything TV – Episode 4

Click here for this 2-minute episode that explains how praise creates a positive work environment where great things happen.  Culture is Everything TV: stories, tools & ideas to help grow your team.

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