291. Jumping Through The Wormhole To A Happier, More Productive Team
291. Jumping Through The Wormhole To A Happier, More Productive Team
Changing a company culture takes time. But here's a secret: there is a wormhole. It allows you to improve your company culture immediately. You just have to see it when it appears
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I had the pleasure of talking with the amazing Dorothy Mashburn about the challenges working women, empowerment, imposter syndrome and more.
Listen to our discussion about female leaders
I grew up playing video games.
I mean, I did other things too, but I also played a lot of video games.
There was this one game called Crystal Castles that was special to me. I could always get the high score on it. It’s not because few people played the game (though few people did). And it’s not because I was good at it (‘cause I wasn’t).
It’s because I discovered the wormhole that dramatically altered the trajectory of my game.
It turns out that when you’re on level 1, you just have to hide behind a certain part of the building on the screen and make your character jump.
Swoooosh! You will be magically transported through a wormhole and dropped onto level 8 with all the points that come with it.
Boom. High score.
Little did I know that this would lead to one of the most important leadership lessons later in life.
The Wormhole to A Better Company Culture
In my executive coaching business I help leaders 10x their team’s productivity. Productivity, as it turns out, is directly related to company culture.
Needless to say, I am often brought into companies where the culture needs a swift thwap upside the noggin.
Some leaders want a quick fix. They want the culture to be fixed overnight. I wish I could give them that quick of a long-term fix.
But changing a company’s culture is hard.
It takes time and a focused effort.
When employees are used to a certain type of behavior from leadership, it requires consistent and controlled efforts to alter their perception.
To turn this into a crappy analogy, if you’re used to being slapped, it takes more than a few interactions to stop you from automatically flinching.
But every once in a while there comes along a unique opportunity that can dramatically alter the trajectory of your company. Every once in awhile, there is a Crystal Castles-like wormhole that can take you right to level 8.
All you have to do is recognize the opportunity and jump into it.
There are 8 ways this can happen.
Let’s talk about 2 of them.
The first involves firing toxic people.
The Special Benefit of Firing Toxic People
You’re not always going to hire the right person for a job. You’re not always going to know how people will act in the company after the honeymoon period is over. Every once in awhile, somebody can turn toxic.
Employee toxicity is a big problem.
Toxic employees create an unhappy and unhealthy work environment for the rest of your workers. They destroy a company culture and, more annoyingly, they dominate the complaining part of your dinner conversations.
That’s exactly why they’re toxic.
A company culture is defined by the worst behavior a leader is willing to tolerate.
The longer you delay firing the toxic employee, the more your culture will degrade and the more your staff will view you as a weak leader. Neither of those results are good.
Toxic employees must be fired quickly.
Unfortunately, many leaders fear firing people.
They don’t want the conflict.
They don’t want people to not like them.
They don’t want to find a replacement.
So they avoid firing.
If that’s you, you’re looking at it all wrong.
Firing toxic employees is a uniquely amazing opportunity to catapult a company culture.
By firing the person and then being immediately transparent about the reasons (“we will no longer tolerate this type of behavior ever again”), you can jolt your company culture to positivity.
Essentially, you wormhole your way from a level 1 culture to level 8.
You will feel a sudden change in employee perception. It’s then your responsibility to continue acting decisively against toxic behavior.
It’s the power of the wormhole.
The Power In Leadership Changes
Another great way to alter the trajectory of your company culture is to leverage the moment when you’re making changes to your company’s leadership. There are three ways this can happen:
Add a new person to the leadership team
Remove a person from the leadership team
Change roles and responsibilities within the leadership team
Regardless of which change you’re making, you have a meaningful opportunity to use this as a jump into the wormhole of culture improvement.
“We recognize our culture is not up to the standards you want. Frankly, it’s not up to the standards we want either. So we are making big changes to improve the working environment. As of next month our leadership structure is changing. Our commitment to a healthier culture starts immediately.”
You see where I’m going with this?
Looking For The Wormhole
It is very common for leaders to look at firings, leadership changes and other similar incidents as critical points of trouble. It’s common to be concerned about the negative impacts of the changes on company culture.
That’s what I want you to change.
Momentous events are unique opportunities to strengthen, not weaken your team. Use them as an opportunity to jump through the wormhole and accelerate your growth faster than you ever thought.
Level 8 is waiting for you.
All you have to do is seize the opportunity and jump.
I know, I know. You’re going to ask me what the other six opportunities are to jump-start your culture. Here you go.
Hiring a new team member
Navigating a crisis
Conducting a merger / acquisition
Rebranding
Rolling out a new process
Committing to a new purpose or social commitment
Do you want a more productive and unified team?
📈 I help leaders 10x their teams’ productivity.
📲 Contact me to learn how to catapult your team’s success
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This really hit home for me. I remember the tough decision of having to let go of a toxic but popular employee a few years back. It wasn’t easy, but the shift in our team’s energy and culture was almost immediate, after the shock had worn off – it was like a weight had been lifted, and suddenly, everyone felt more motivated and connected. Your analogy of finding the “wormhole” to level up is spot on. Sometimes, it takes those difficult moments to create the most profound changes. Have you found that seizing these moments gets easier with experience?