Before I date myself too much, I’m 46 years old…so I’m going to reference one of my favorite TV commercial lines from the early 90’s from the famed 70 year old one-armed pushup actor Jack Palance.
Our culture is the character, personality and heartbeat of our business. It’s what makes us unique, and is the sum of our values, beliefs, interactions, behaviors, and attitude towards each other, our customers and the community we serve. Culture does not just happen. It’s done with intention. And the intention has to be intentional. And that “intentional intention” has to be consistent across every person in the building, every second of every day. And we’ll only get there if we all believe in these common principles.
I was walking to the coffee machine at work the other day when I noticed a coworker (whom I’d also consider a friend) sitting and staring out the window, clearly in deep thought. I had to stop to see what was at the core of this deep thought. After a few minutes of small talk, the conversation turned serious. “What do you think about trusting the process?” he asked me.
We’ve been talking a lot at work about customer expectations. Not just what they expect from us but what we expect from ourselves and how that maps to what our customers expect from us. The notion of customers’ expectations outpacing the expectations of ourselves is frightening.
Scrap the talk and embrace the action. Scrap the mile and embrace the extra mile. Then scrap the finish line and embrace the road that leads you there. Work hard in silence and let success be your noise.
