2 Keys to Outwitting Your Competition

If you see or hear the word “culture”, what picture comes to your mind? Do you think of different people groups? Or perhaps do you think of the feeling of a group or organization?

I’ll bet you didn’t think of a system or of behaviors within a group. When it comes to business in particular, we haven’t been taught in business school that a company can have a system to impact how our people act. Most times when someone speaks of culture within a company, the topic typically revolves around the environment and perhaps more “warm and fuzzy” kinds of ideas.

Although, we do see examples of companies being very intentional and systematic about practicing the behaviors that will drive success. Many times companies like Zappos or Google and other progressive tech companies are used as leaders in the path of intentionally creating cultures where people not only thrive but also perform at their highest levels.

When I think of culture, I think of principle-based behaviors that can be taught, practiced, communicated and measured. There is a very big distinction between creating a set of values or a mission statement and creating a set of behaviors that will fundamentally drive the success of any organization.

In my opinion, too many companies go through those kinds of exercises – and yes, they are important – but then they don’t have any way to really create action behind them.

Behaviors, on the other hand are easier to teach, coach and give feedback on.

A system for creating a culture that out-performs your competition over and over again isn’t complicated but it does take dedication and what I call intentionality.

It’s not complicated because at it’s core, driving an intended culture of performance and growth is about defining what behaviors are driving your success and then creating successful habits and rituals to practice those behaviors.

That’s where the hard part comes in.

Human behavior can be difficult to change. Our behaviors get hard wired into us because we’ve done certain things over and over until they become a part of the programmed “way we do things”. The human mind is very much like a computer hard drive that carries an operating system and when new behaviors are introduced, if our operating system hasn’t ever seen that kind of file type before, it kicks it out and we hit what is sometimes called the terror barrier.

The key to creating these small shifts in our behavior patterns is to come up with habits that help us practice them. Over time, our hard drive (i.e our mind) gets programmed. How do world class athletes get so good? They come up with rituals that keep them practicing the things that will separate them from the rest of the pack. Those habits become second nature and their performance becomes consistently excellent every time.

In my home state of Indiana, basketball is legendary. Along with the game are legendary basketball players and coaches. Larry Bird came from a small town called French Lick, Indiana and part of the story of his greatness is that he got up early every morning in high school and shot 500 free throws before class. Every morning before class, shooting 500 free throws. Not 50 free throws, not 100. But 500 free throws. Is it any wonder that he was so good at them?

That same dedication and intentionality needs to occur in our companies if we want to create a culture that will give a sustainable competitive advantage in whatever industry you find your business in. For too long, leaders have been looking in the wrong places to gain competitive advantage. 

If you look at the companies where people are thriving and the company is succeeding, they do two things extraordinarily well. Those high performing companies intentionally and systematically:

1. High performing cultures define their culture.  Take the Ritz Carlton for example.  They have a set of daily basics that drive the highest levels of service and performance.  When a company gets serious, they define the behaviors that will create success that will serve their customers and their people so well that they will stand out from the noisy competitive landscape.

2. High performing culture practice their behaviors.  In the Fundamentals SystemTM we call the behaviors fundamentals because they are fundamental to the success and high performance. Creating ways to practice these fundamentals every day and every week are their key to ensuring their people have every opportunity activate their high performance.

What are the fundamentals of your business?

How do you practice them?

Creating an organization that outperforms competition doesn’t have to be complicated if you have a systematic way to make it happen. It does take leadership being intentional about defining and practicing principle-based behaviors.