Culture is Everything

Why you should avoid being the smartest in any room

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’ve been following the Culture is Everything blog for a few months and I’d really love to know what’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received? - SC

A: Dear SC,

Thanks for following and thanks for asking!

If you’d asked me this question last week I would’ve answered with a response that has stuck with me for the past five or six years. It’s a very simple piece of asvice that I heard soon after I launched The Physio Co.  Quite simply, the advice was “Don’t dabble.” I continue to make sure that if I do something, I’m all in and give everything 100%.  I love the simplicity of the message.

A couple of days ago however, I heard something that is my new best piece of advice.  Again, it’s simple: “If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.”

I love this concept and it fits perfectly with one of my personal values to always ‘find a better way’.  For years I have been working hard to continually surround myself with smarter, brighter, more capable and more energetic people than myself.  This simple statement says it beautifully.

I hope this helps and I’d love to know what’s the best advice everyone else has received. If you’d like to share, please let me know over here on my FB wall.

Good luck,
Tristan

How more parties will grow your culture

Building a strong workplace culture should result in more fun & more engagement from everyone.  If you’ve got the right people on your team, throwing meaningful parties is one way to grow a strong culture.

At The Physio Co, our core values guide us to “take the time to celebrate milestones and successes”.  So we celebrate!  As long as it means something to someone, we will have a party.  Every year we celebrate our own birthday, Christmas, our MVP award winners, people getting married, people achieving personal goals, when we win awards and plenty of other occasions. 

Last Saturday The Physio Co had a party to celebrate it’s 8th birthday.  We decided on a magic theme (why not?!), invited everyone, hired a magician, blew up some balloons, sang happy birthday, ate some cake and had some fun to celebrate a milestone. It was short and sharp (from 1.30-4.30pm on Saturday afternoon) but well worth it.

Parties and celebrations don’t have to be expensive, but they do need to mean something.  For example, The Physio Co’s very first Christmas Party was just four people going out for a meal at a local pub.  It wasn’t fancy, but it was very important to acknowledge, thank and celebrate with our early team members (the four people at that first party are all still full time members of The Physio Co family today).

If you want a stronger culture, start finding things to celebrate.  Then throw some regular parties!

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What’s TW up to? Feb 21-27

In short, here’s my week. I’m..

Excited - about The Physio Co family’s 8th birthday party coming up on Saturday.  (It’s a ‘Magic’ Theme!)

Sharing - The Physio Co’s 2012 Culture Book with the TPC team at our birthday party. (There MIGHT be some copies available for members of the Culture is Everything community, please let me know if you’d like a sneaky peek inside The Physio Co family) 

Pleased - to officially welcome KW back to The Physio Co team (for just a few days!)

Attending - the monthly committee meeting of Prom Country Aged Care 

Finishing - a few books that have been hanging around including Fascinate & Reality Marketing Revolution.

Planning - the Culture is Everything Book Club. Interested in joining and reading/discussing a book with me regularly?

Reviewing - a few posts I missed from the archives of Verne’s Insights

Training -  3 hours in the pool, 7.5 on the bike & 5.5 hours on foot this week.  Only 11 weeks until Ironman Australia!

Learn before you earn

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?

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

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

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..

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”

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.

What’s TW up to? Feb 7-13

In short, here’s my week. I’m..

How storytelling builds a strong culture

Sharing stories of team members living core values and then celebrating their successes is one of the best ways to build a strong family culture.

At The Physio Co we tell a short, 30-second story of a team member living one of our four core values everyday at our daily huddle.  To The Point, our 12-minute huddle has a set agenda and one day per week each member of our support team shares a story of another TPCer living a core value.

Similar to how we use core values for recognition, the stories are told like this:

Value - Find a better way: we inspire others by continually finding a better way

Who lived it - MT

How - MT (TPC physio) went shopping in her own time and with her own money to buy some new shoes for an elderly resident who had no family or friends to do it for her. The brand new shoes made the resi feel very special and of course she’s now much safer on her feet. Thanks MT, you’ve inspired us all to continue finding a better way!

Positive stories of team mates getting great results and being recognised by their peers is fun, feels great and helps to focus everyone on what works.

Storytelling is without doubt THE best way to build and strengthen a strong family culture.   No matter how many stories you’re already telling, I reckon you can always tell more! 

How being a CEO helped me lose 10kg

In the last 143 days, I’ve lost just over 10kg’s. The skills I use everyday as a CEO helped me get there.  Here’s how…

• Create a vision - On my bucket list (you do have one, don’t you?) is a dream to finish an Ironman Triathlon, so I’ve entered! I’ll be competing in Ironman Australia at Port Macquarie in May 2012.  For the past 8 years I’ve pushed myself hard in my professional career at the expense of my health and fitness. It was time to change. Putting a deadline on my dream made it real. 

• Learn from the experts - Over the last few months, I have read a LOT about triathlon! Two things that helped me lose the excess 10.5kg’s is the knowledge that 1) cycling is often the most important leg in triathlon 2) power-to-weight is critical to being a good cyclist. Therefore, get lean! (Lance Armstrong explains it right here - jump to 2:15 if you’re in a hurry). 

• Set mini-goals - After learning how important it is to get lean, in September 2011 I set a goal to get from 82.5kg to 72.0kg by January 31.  I then broke this goal down into monthly, weekly, and daily(!) goals (remember Reverse Engineering?).  I no longer had to lose 10.5kg’s, I just had to lose 74 grams per day. Easy!

• Measure what you manage - I measured and recorded my weight every morning.  As I got closer to my goal, sometimes I weighed myself a few times a day (crazy, I know, but it worked).  By knowing my progress, it helped me make decisions about what I could and should eat.  When I was ahead, I could have a treat. When I was behind, I ate a bit less.

• Don’t let failure stop you - Some days I put on weight. It was frustrating.  In the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, I gained almost 1kg.  But, by measuring what I managed, I knew what I had to do and I re-focussed on making it happen

• Make it fun - Weighing myself every morning and sometimes during the day became a game in our house.  KW got involved in the last month and we both had some fun entering our weight into the True Weight iPhone app every day.

• Celebrate successes - I made my 72.0kg target on Jan 30 (one day early).  This week, we’re celebrating! (I’ll still measure what I manage, but, I’ll take it a bit easier and enjoy what I’ve achieved for a moment).

Being 10.5kg’s lighter not only helps me on my bike, I feel much better and have heaps more energy (despite training 14-16 hours per week!).  For me, measuring what I managed was the most important approach to hit my goal.

*NB - I visited a medical doctor before and during these 143 days.  The measure what you manage approach worked for me, if you want to lose weight, get the right advice.

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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.

Core values for attracting the right staff

A strong family culture is essentially a group of people that live and believe in a small set of shared values. Therefore, growing a values-based organisation is about attracting more and more people that share those values.

At The Physio Co we use our four core values to attract new team members by sharing and referring to them at every possible opportunity.  Potential new TPC team members already understand how important our values are before they even apply.  In most cases, one of the reasons why they apply is BECAUSE of our values.

The Physio Co core values are in many spots on our website, in our painted picture of 2012, used in recruitment and stories are told of TPCers living our values at To The Point every single day. Our core values are even No.2 on the list of the Top 57 reasons to work at The Physio Co!

Like attracts like.  Are you using core values to attract more culture-fits for your team?

Two ways to boost morale of your sales team

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

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Q: Tristan, how do you keep staff morale up to hit sales targets when we seem to be missing them every month? I feel that I am setting realistic targets. Do I set a poor and easily achievable target to push up morale or do I keep setting targets that are in line with what I feel we should be able to achieve? - JB

A: Dear JB,

Firstly, take a deep breath, you’re not alone on this one! Driving consistent sales is really tough.

Next, don’t set a short-term low target, that just reduces your expectations.  You need to find a way to hit your targets and every time you do, you have to celebrate! Success creates more success. 

In my experience, setting goals for someone else is risky business.  I’m very rarely inspired by someone else’s target or goal. The same applies to getting your team motivated, they have to feel like it’s their goal. To get your team focussed on achieving your sales targets I think you need to consider two things:

1. Involve your team in the goal setting
2. Make chasing the target more fun

Now you might be thinking that only you, as the business owner/manager, can know what expenses you have and therefore sales you need to create a decent profit. In my experience, the more you share with your team, the greater their commitment, understanding and loyalty will be. You don’t have to share all your financials just yet if that makes you uncomfortable, but, at the very least, share some numbers so your team can understand where you’re coming from.  (Whatever profit you’re making, I’ll bet your team thinks it’s at least 2-3 times more!  Be honest with them).

As far as making chasing the target fun, how about breaking the monthly target down to daily goals and having a mini-reward for hitting the target each day?  The mini-reward doesn’t even have to cost you anything, it could be parking in your car space or starting work 15-mins later. Be creative.

Good luck!

Tristan