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My guest for Episode #275 of the My Favorite Mistake podcast is Brian Gottlieb, an inspiring entrepreneur and founder who transformed a modest $3,000 startup into a thriving group of multistate companies valued at nearly $200 million. Brian’s companies have earned spots on the Inc. 5000 list for four consecutive years and have been recognized as one of Wisconsin's best workplaces. In addition to being a successful CEO, Brian is a Harvard Business School alum, angel investor, keynote speaker, and author of the new book Beyond the Hammer: A Fresh Approach to Leadership, Culture, and Building High-Performance Teams.
In this episode, we discuss Brian’s journey from working odd jobs to founding his first home improvement company and scaling it to a multi-million dollar business. Brian shares his “favorite mistake”—not pursuing formal education after high school—and how that perceived mistake shaped his entrepreneurial path. We also dive into his approach to leadership, the importance of building a strong culture, and how empowering people can drive success.
Brian also opens up about his time at Harvard Business School and how it helped him evolve as a leader. We discuss the challenges of balancing performance and culture, why hiring for culture fit matters, and how his philosophy of “building people before building a business” has been key to his success. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, business leader, or simply interested in learning from others' mistakes, Brian’s story offers valuable lessons on growth, leadership, and resilience.
Tune in to hear Brian's insights on leadership, the value of mistakes, and the strategies that helped him build a $200M business from scratch.
Questions and Topics:
- What would you say is your favorite mistake?
- How did your decision not to attend college shape your entrepreneurial path?
- Can you tell us more about your experience at Harvard Business School and how it impacted your leadership approach?
- What was your first business, and how did it evolve into a multi-state company?
- How did you manage learning on the job while growing a business from scratch?
- How did you approach building the culture and developing people within your organization?
- What do you think about companies that focus on culture in addition to performance?
- How do you balance hiring for performance versus culture fit, and how do you handle it when someone performs well but doesn’t fit the culture?
- Can you explain the concept of “beyond the hammer” and how it applies to leadership and business growth?
- How do you handle mistakes or performance issues in a way that supports growth and learning?
- What are your thoughts on the “stay interview” concept, and how does it help improve organizational culture?
- How did you empower your team to make decisions and learn from their mistakes?
- What is your perspective on micromanaging versus empowering employees?
- How do you maintain alignment within your company and prevent cultural clashes when bringing in experienced hires?
- How important is long-term thinking in leadership, especially when growing a business?
- What leadership lessons have you learned from Toyota, and how do you apply them in your business?
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- Full transcript
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Automated Transcript (May Contain Mistakes)
Mark Graban:
Hi, welcome to my favorite mistake. I'm your host, Mark Graban. Today we are joined by our guest, Brian Gottlieb. He is a Harvard business school alum, a visionary founder and CEO who transformed a modest $3,000 startup into a thriving multistate group of companies valued at nearly $200 million. So he led.
Mark Graban:
Brian has led his companies to the Inc. 5000 list for four consecutive years and earned recognition as Wisconsin's best workplace. He's passionate about helping businesses and being a grower of people, so I love that phrase. He serves as an angel investor, board member and a sought after keynote speaker. Brian's new book is titled Beyond the A Fresh Approach to Leadership Culture and Building Performance Teams.
Mark Graban:
So Brian, welcome to the podcast. How are you?
Brian Gottlieb:
Mark, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it. We're going to have some fun today.
Mark Graban:
I think we are. Fun question forgive the joke. And we say beyond the hammer. The book is not. It's not a reference to MC Hammer.
Brian Gottlieb:
It's not. But maybe that'll be my next book.
Mark Graban:
Michael Hammer might have been a better business reference. Talking about authors, I'm pretty sure I know what you mean by getting beyond the hammer and how that helps build a great workplace. So I am excited to hear more about that. But as we always do here, Brian, first things first. My favorite question, what would you say is your favorite mistake?
Brian Gottlieb:
It's really interesting, Mark, and thanks for the question. It was beyond my favorite mistake, it was a lingering regret that stayed with me for over 40 years. So like many people in this world, school was never my thing. When I got out of school, I didn't go to college. I went right into the workforce, sold pots and pans and did all sold home improvement projects, did all sorts of things.
Brian Gottlieb:
For many, many, many years, I regretted that decision of not going to school. In fact, there was a time when, after I had a consulting business, I wanted to come off of the road and I started applying at certain businesses. And because I didn't have a certain level of education, I didn't get a chance. I wasn't hired. Once again, a mistake that I continued to regret for 40 plus years.
Brian Gottlieb:
That mistake led me to the point that, well, if I can't get this job or that job or another job, you know what? Maybe I'm just going to start my own business. Had I gone to school, my life would have gone down a very, very different path. Having not gone to school was really the thing that made me decide to open up my own business. And two years ago, I sold that business for generational wealth, something I probably wouldn't have accomplished had I gone to college.
Brian Gottlieb:
It's just interesting.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. And that's something it would be hard to accomplish as an employee as opposed to being a founder and an entrepreneur and helping a business thrive.
Brian Gottlieb:
Yeah. What I did learn about that journey, though, is because when I was about 54 years old, and the business was I had probably 40, 50 employees, we were doing maybe at the time, 30 or $40 million. I realized I've never done this before. I don't know how to run a 30 or $40 million business. So I heard about this executive education program at Harvard Business School, and I applied.
Brian Gottlieb:
Not even think they would accept me, mind you, but they did. And I was. I was super excited and absolutely petrified at the same time, because, again, I think about how I didn't do well on tests, and school wasn't my thing.
Mark Graban:
Yeah.
Brian Gottlieb:
But I got through the classes. It was really wonderful. I really performed well, and I learned through that process that it's a very blurry line between the. That which is a weakness and that which we're simply afraid of. I viewed my lack of doing well in school as a weakness.
Brian Gottlieb:
What I learned as I got older, you know what? It was just a fear, and I needed to walk through it. And you know what? We're not the same person. We are more 18.
Brian Gottlieb:
Go figure.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. Yeah. And so that school experience that. That educate formal education experience was. Was not a mistake, it seems.
Brian Gottlieb:
That was not a mistake. That actually. That actually helped. Really helped me be a more intentional leader for my team and really helped transform the business and really grow it.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. And what was that first business that you started? I'm not sure what the exact businesses were.
Brian Gottlieb:
So I opened up my first home improvement company in 2009 in the back of a friend's warehouse on a plastic folding table with $3,000 in cash. And that's how the business started. And it was primarily a sunroom company. We were doing sunroom additions and such over the following years. We added products like bathroom modeling and replacement windows and exterior things like decks, and we did some kitchen refacing and opened up in multiple states with multiple different business units and product lines.
Brian Gottlieb:
And, yeah, when I sold the business, we actually had, we're up to 600 employees and $150 million in yearly revenue. So the business was. Was quite successful, and we had a great team.
Mark Graban:
But, you know, starting a business there, there's just a lot of practical and technical details of, you know, how, how, or when, you know, do you even need to incorporate or you just start off as a sole proprietorship? And how do you, how do you pay yourself or how do you pay somebody else? Or, I mean, did. What was your informal real life education? Was it a matter of learning through experience hiring people?
Brian Gottlieb:
Yeah, my informal education, which I kept a journal. And during my consulting days, I got to visit with a lot of companies across the country, and I kept this journal, and I kept two columns on each page, and the columns were on one side, if I ever start a business, I'm definitely doing these things. And the other side was, if I ever start a business, I'm never doing these things, because I got to see a lot of, you know, a lot of businesses. And especially when 2008 hit where a lot of businesses were going out of business, it was, it was quite, it was almost like a PhD in business having that experience. So I did take those things and apply the best of what I've seen out there into the business.
Brian Gottlieb:
Early on, I wanted to create more than just a company. I wanted to. I really wanted to build a business that was woven into the fabric of the communities that we served. I wanted to give people more than just a job. I wanted to give them a mission.
Brian Gottlieb:
And that was at the core of everything we did.
Mark Graban:
And, I mean, I'm going to say this as somebody with an MBA on the wall, in addition to an engineering degree, where there were some business topics. I don't know if business schools are really teaching people to focus on growing people and being good members of the community. There are many valuable things being taught there. But, I mean, in some ways, you weren't a biased by, you know, I'm going to stereotype, but from business school experience, it's just so much focus on finance and buying and selling companies and maybe not really relating to employees in a way that would actually be better.
Brian Gottlieb:
I agree with you, Mark. And if we do think back to 2008, we probably all know people that lost their jobs during those times. And, you know, that watching people that really cared about their job and then not having one anymore, that really set the course for me, wanting to create a different type of business. And so a lot of it was about the environment also that really set the groundwork for success. But look, we all know in the early stages of business, the first rule of business is just simply to stay in business.
Brian Gottlieb:
But at some point, you have to hire people and build teams and create alignment and do all those sort of things if you really want to grow.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. And there's a lot of businesses that might not garner all the headlines. I mean, there's so much focus on tech entrepreneurs, and that's great. There's in tech circles, so many stories of the Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg's people who dropped out of college because they started a business. And there's almost this maybe overreaction to some people saying, well, okay, we'll see.
Mark Graban:
The college degree is not important. You know, some high profile entrepreneurs have, like, literally offered some, like $100,000 to a college kid to quit school because they had quit school. And we're going to pay you to, you know, we're going to help you start a business instead. I'm curious your reaction to that, that type of thing.
Brian Gottlieb:
Well, look, I think that if you, if we were to study all the successful entrepreneurs, whether it's those that went to school or dropped out of school, I think the one thing they all share is a learning mindset. And I think what school does do is it helps you to exercise the muscle of learning. And that's really, and again, I didn't realize that until some, many, many, many years later. But if we exercise, as leaders of a business, we exercise the muscle of learning and keep our learning mindset and instill a learning mindset in those on our team. You know what?
Brian Gottlieb:
We're going to grow a great business. And especially when you think about, as I was saying earlier, in the early days of starting a business, this is about staying in business. And when the entrepreneur is the sole employee, the business's success is based on how well the entrepreneur executes. But when we start hiring people, well, now the business's success is based on how well our teams perform, both when the leader's watching and when they're not. So, you know, getting the right mindset down for the people on your team is really, really crucial.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. And that idea of not just surviving but thriving requires a different approach, including, you know, developing people and thinking about culture, not, I mean, you know, there's so much to think about. And I know some companies that are very successful, not just because they have a great idea, great technology, focus on a customer, they also focus on culture. And I think from the early stages of not just thinking what markets are we going to go into, but also thinking about what culture do we want to create. Some people don't do that.
Brian Gottlieb:
Yeah, it's true. We had a saying in our business that, look, if you really want to copy our performance, you first have to copy our culture and what goes on inside of our people's heads, because that and that's the most difficult thing to replicate. You know, when we talk about the title of the book, beyond the Hammer, the concept of that was, it's a story about this contractor that's swinging a hammer. And to build a business, you know, you really have to get beyond the hammer and build the people inside of the business. If you want to build a business, you have to commit to building people.
Brian Gottlieb:
And whether you're in the construction business or there's so many different businesses where I think the owner is so busy inside of the business that it's hard to kind of zoom out and really say, how do we, how do we build the people so that we can really build a business?
Mark Graban:
Yeah.
Brian Gottlieb:
Really get beyond the hammer.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. And I, you know, I think there's, there's at least in, in my mind, thinking of some of my experiences and scars, a different meaning of the hammer is managers or executives who, quote, unquote, bring the hammer down on people when they've made a mistake or when there's, you know, performance issues. So to me, that's the other thing that, that comes to mind, what you think.
Brian Gottlieb:
It's a great analogy. Right. And typically, if you think about, you've got the leader, you've got the manager, and then you've got the hammer. Right? You've got the boss with a hammer.
Brian Gottlieb:
And that's a tough environment where anybody is ever really going to be successful. One of the things I do write about the book is that 60% of people in the United States have left a job simply to get away from a manager. That's an alarming statistic, and we all know somebody that's probably miserable at their work, and it doesn't need to be like that. The good news is it creates a massive competitive edge for the leader that says, that's not okay, we're going to, we're going to grow people. We're going to create opportunity here.
Brian Gottlieb:
As I was saying earlier, we're not going to give people a job. We're going to give them a mission. And when you do that, you could really grow on heck of a business.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. And I think growing people requires a founder or a leader to take what might seem like a risk of giving up some control of literally, maybe in your home improvement business, of literally handing a hammer to somebody else and saying, okay, I'm not swinging the hammer anymore, but I'm trying to hire great people and find customers and put them in a position where I, they can go do good things with those hammers. And we all win mark.
Brian Gottlieb:
That's absolutely correct. Yes. We need to hire to our weaknesses. Right. We know that.
Brian Gottlieb:
But we also have to replicate our strengths as quick as possible, too, because otherwise we're going to be. Otherwise we will be the lid of the business. So how do we empower others? You know, going back to that hammer philosophy of the, of the difficult boss.
Mark Graban:
Yeah.
Brian Gottlieb:
You know, it's, it you. I guess business owners have a choice. You know, do they want to create a business that's driven by policy where mistakes are punished, or do you want a business that's based on empowerment, recognizing that it's indecision that's frowned upon, not mistakes, and everything becomes a training opportunity. If I can share with you, when I first started my construction business, if you'd asked me what business I was in, I would have said, well, we're in the construction business. If you ask me, maybe, I don't know, when I had probably 30 sales reps and a couple hundred employees.
Brian Gottlieb:
If you asked me what kind of business we were in, I would have said, well, we're a sales and marketing company that happens to be in home improvements. But it wasn't until we didn't start to really grow, until we changed our mindset and said, you know what business we really are? We're a training organization. We develop people. That's what we have to do.
Brian Gottlieb:
We have to be in the business of developing talent. And that, and that was, it was transformational, not just for myself, but for the team as well.
Mark Graban:
Yeah, well, and that makes me think of a company that a lot of people admire and try to emulate or copy. And like you, like you said, copying culture and mindsets is probably the hardest thing. But Toyota. Toyota Motor talks a lot in very specific language of saying, we are a people development company. They'll use expressions that I think would resonate with you of we're building people before building cars.
Mark Graban:
And obviously, growing and developing people is admirable in and of itself, but it's also a means to the end, meaning satisfying customers and growing a business.
Brian Gottlieb:
Yeah, that's a great. There's a section in my book that talks about Toyota specifically because one of their tools of empowerment is something known as the Andon cord. And an and on cord, as you know. Right. Sits at every single station in the manufacturing line, and everybody is not told to, but empowered to pull that cord if there's a problem because.
Brian Gottlieb:
And then they're actively involved in finding the root cause of it. Right. Toyota is a great example of building people.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. Well, and I think in a positive way. I mean, I know you're saying, like, they're not told, they're not forced to. There's this expectation that if you, the way I've learned it from Toyota people is, you know, if you see a problem, pull the cord. If in doubt, pull the cord.
Mark Graban:
Like, if you think that's right, maybe there's possibly a problem, pull the cord. But then that's positively reinforced by a team leader coming and trying to help. Instead of some companies. People would get yelled at for potentially stopping the line if that's the primary focus as opposed to quality and solving problems. And while we keep Toyota up on this pedestal, but they really talk about the emphasis as a leader, if you know the answer to a problem and you give it to your employees, you're robbing them of an opportunity to learn and grow.
Brian Gottlieb:
That's right.
Mark Graban:
I think that's really powerful.
Brian Gottlieb:
That's right. And potentially coming up with even a better solution.
Mark Graban:
Yes, that, too.
Brian Gottlieb:
What happens is as an organization grows, as I'm sure you know, the CEO and the leadership team get further and further away from the customer as layers of the chart get filled in. And decisions aren't always the best decisions when they're made in an ivory tower. There's a saying, the shepherd should smell like the sheep, and people closest to the product or the customer are the ones that are going to probably come up with a really, really good answer to any given problem.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. And so, like, letting go, control. Letting go of controlling the hammer, letting go of. I mean, I know leaders struggle with this, of feeling like, well, I'm the, I'm the leader. I'm the owner.
Mark Graban:
I need to have all the answers. Or it's like, if I don't have the answers, I'm failing my employees. Well, you could flip that and say, well, if you're always giving people the answers, maybe you're failing them in a different way.
Brian Gottlieb:
Yeah. The leader is, should the leader have all the answers or should they really know the right questions to ask? Right.
Mark Graban:
Yeah.
Brian Gottlieb:
And that's kind of an interesting perspective.
Mark Graban:
And you ask that as a question.
Brian Gottlieb:
That's right. Exactly. That's right. That's right. Yeah.
Mark Graban:
I mean, I, yeah. So everyone can answer that their own way. But I mean, I think, I'm curious. In your study of Toyota and thinking about your own businesses, some of that distinction is, do I give them the answer because it'd be faster or do I let them struggle a little bit and like you said, maybe solve it, maybe come up with something better. It's a matter of long term versus short term perspective.
Mark Graban:
So there's a book called the Toyota Way. Professor Jeff Leicher from University of Michigan spells out. Here's 14 principles of Toyota. Principle number one is about making decisions based on the long term, even at the expense of the short term. And a lot of these companies that would say, oh, we want to copy Toyota.
Mark Graban:
They won't copy the long term thinking idea.
Brian Gottlieb:
Well, and by the way, I understand that. I understand the idea that I'm starting a business. I've got my world on the line because it's my business, the cash in the business. There's not a lot to replace it if things don't go wrong. And the natural tendency is to want to micromanage every single decision along the way.
Brian Gottlieb:
But in doing so, really, nobody grows. And at some point, at some point, you have to create an environment where people are allowed to kind of, you know, I think about it this way. My role as a leader, if I take my kids bowling when they were little, right. You take them to the bowling alley, and they have these gates that go up in the gutters, right. That stops the ball from going in the gutter, but the ball can go as crazy as it wants in between those gutters.
Brian Gottlieb:
That's kind of my role. Right. How do I provide these gutter guards but allow them to have the freedom to find their way? And I think that's an okay balance on how do you get from feeling like you have to micromanage to starting the process of empowerment?
Mark Graban:
Yeah, yeah. And think of literal guardrails on a windy mountain road. The guardrail maybe, you know, mitigates the mistake of driving poorly. And crashing into a guardrail is better than going off the mountain. You don't want to smash your car into the guard.
Brian Gottlieb:
Not a pleasant experience.
Mark Graban:
But then hopefully, let's see if this analogy still, if I can keep the analogy making sense, but hopefully, the first time you hit the guardrail, or better yet, the first time you almost hit the guardrail, because you hit that rumble strip in the shoulder and you realize, oh, no, I'm heading for the guardrail. That's even better. Then you adjust and learn not to crash.
Brian Gottlieb:
Mark, I think it's a great analogy, and I think there's probably another book in there somewhere with it, maybe.
Mark Graban:
No, I'm just thinking of something silly I did the other day. I was sitting at a red light waiting for it to turn green. I was the second person, and the car in front of me started going, and they were about to turn left. And sure, you know, some pickup truck came flying through, really running that red light. And I saw, and I think, is that about to be a collision?
Mark Graban:
Well, I slammed on my, on my horn. I don't know, like, what kind of reflex that was. And thankfully the car stopped in time and the pickup truck, you know, went around it. And I think, boy, there was, there was a close call. I don't think my horn honking was going to wait.
Mark Graban:
I don't know. I don't know. But it was this reflex. So I don't know why that story popped into mind, but I think sometimes as a leader, there's this question of, this is why it came to mind of where do we call out the risk versus when do we let things play out? When do you let someone hit the guardrail and when do you need to keep them away from danger?
Brian Gottlieb:
Well, you know, taking what you just said and backing up to something we chatted about a moment ago is asking the right questions. Right. Because what we have to do, if we're going to be, if we're going to be a training organization, if we're going to empower people, we actually have to help them. We have to teach them how to make decisions, right? We have to teach them how to go through.
Brian Gottlieb:
Going back to Toyota, there are five why, you know, how do you get to the root cause? How you're not focusing on symptoms, but really addressing the problems. But these are all things that we need to develop people for. A lot of folks that work in a business have never been asked to rise to that level of accountability and responsibility and decision making. And they sometimes need their handheld along the way.
Brian Gottlieb:
And there's nothing wrong with that at all, right?
Mark Graban:
And you hear people complain in different industries if they're looking for a new job, and you'll hear people say a company only wants to hire somebody who's already done that exact same job for x number of years. And people are like, well, I'm trying to change jobs because I would like a better job or a different job. And if you're only going to plug people into a spot where, you know they're a perfect fit, where's their opportunity for growth? Or maybe, okay, they prove themselves and we'll promote them after year, but it seems like businesses like yours, you're probably creating through growth these opportunities for career progression, for others to become leaders instead of handling the hammer directly.
Brian Gottlieb:
That's right. Well, I'll share with you a story. As long as I've been in the construction industry. My entire adult life, practically as long as I've been in this industry, there's been a labor shortage. I can tell you the last time there hasn't been a labor shortage.
Brian Gottlieb:
And I actually sit on something called the Joint center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, and we put out this lira report, its leading indicator report, and, yep, guess what? There's a labor shortage. And so I think even in that sense, you know, do we just hire people that know what they're doing, or do we say, hey, let's. Let's teach people. Let's give people, let's not worry about a labor shortage.
Brian Gottlieb:
Let's not be held hostage to the rules created in our own mind. Let's train and develop people. Let's bring people right out of high school that don't want to go to college and teach them a path. In fact, from my own personal experience, and especially in the sales role, I've always found it much more successful to groom up a salesperson that has. That doesn't have the experience.
Brian Gottlieb:
But they're hungry, they're trainable, they are enthusiastic. They really want to grow. Versus bringing on somebody that has a whole lot of experience. One of the challenges that businesses have is when you start hiring people that have a whole lot of experience, and you bring them all into your. Under your tent, you have a lot of colliding cultures.
Brian Gottlieb:
They bring with them the culture of the other business. And in many ways, culture, the culture is shaped by the lowest level of acceptable behavior inside of your business. So when you start bringing in all these colliding cultures, it doesn't necessarily work out so well, nor is success necessarily portable. Just because they were successful somewhere else, the conditions might have made them that, and doesn't no guarantee they're going to be successful with you.
Mark Graban:
Right? Right. And that's where, you know, it seems like whether there's labor shortages or even without, you know, culture can be a real competitive advantage in terms of attracting and retaining talent.
Brian Gottlieb:
Well, let's. Let's go there. Okay. Let's go there. If we think about it, we were saying earlier that when you start a business, success is based on how an entrepreneur executes.
Brian Gottlieb:
When you start hiring people, success is based on how well your team executes. What determines that. Right. How people think affects how they feel. How people feel, affect how they act.
Brian Gottlieb:
How the team acts is how the business performs. The culture affects the mindset, how people think and feel about the business, which significantly impacts organizational performance. Culture doesn't simply make a difference. In my opinion. It's the difference maker.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. The difference.
Brian Gottlieb:
The difference maker, yeah.
Mark Graban:
One thing you're right about I haven't heard about before. Everyone knows the exit interview. I've done exit interviews leaving jobs in the past, and some will say, well, what you might learn from that exit interview is too late. Or why should I tell you things in the exit interview that you didn't care about when I was still an employee, you talk about something called a stay interview. Tell us about that.
Brian Gottlieb:
Right. Well, we think about an exit interview, it's really an autopsy.
Mark Graban:
Right.
Brian Gottlieb:
So let's change the dynamics of that and where it came about from is that we were doing exit interviews like a lot of companies were, and we heard some kind of interesting nuggets of people that were leaving us and moving on to something else. We thought, how can we be proactive with that? Well, let's do stay interviews. And the stay interviews consisted of four questions that we would ask people while they were still working for us. The first question is, what makes you want to come to work every day?
Brian Gottlieb:
The second question is, what would make you one day want to leave? The third question is, what is something the organization is doing wrong today? And the fourth question is, what is something that you're not getting from your manager that you think you need and what it is? It's kind of like, if you remember in science class that you used litmus paper to test things. Well, the stay interview is like the litmus paper for the culture of your organization.
Brian Gottlieb:
You think you have a certain culture. You think the business. You think you have a certain mindset amongst your team? Well, let's test that. Let's do a stay interview and see if it's real or see if there's maybe some blind spot we need to.
Brian Gottlieb:
Need to address.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. And I mean, it sounds like, I mean, you know, those questions are great questions. And am I right in assuming that the format would be a face to face discussion the way an exit interview would be, as opposed to anonymous surveys where you might ask the same questions and get maybe less specific feedback than you could get from a conversation?
Brian Gottlieb:
Yeah, we certainly preferred it in a face to face environment. So, look, it's a great way if you're conducting a performance review with somebody, it kind of broadens the conversation beyond KPI's and the typical metrics inside of the business and really gets to how people think and feel about the organization because you can take that information and then use that as a coaching opportunity for both yourself as a leader, but also for the person that you're working with.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. And, yeah, it just seemed like you would end up with ideas, feedback. That's much more actionable than some sort of numeric score litmus test. I mean, there's lots of different ways of surveying engagement, satisfaction, but maybe that question doesn't get asked of, do you have everything you need to do your job? What can we do to support you?
Mark Graban:
It's almost an organizational evaluation, not just an individual evaluation.
Brian Gottlieb:
Right. And it should be, it should be a two way street. Right. We want to make sure that we're providing, you know, not only putting people in the right seats, but we also giving them the right tools to be successful. The boat.
Brian Gottlieb:
Both are very, very important.
Mark Graban:
Exactly.
Brian Gottlieb:
Or is there another seat that they might be really aspiring to get into? Well, let's help them get there.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. So think about, you know, performance and business growth and culture. Do you have any kind of specific stories from your own leadership about helping people feel more safe to admit mistakes, feeling safer to ask for help, having the focus be on learning from mistakes?
Brian Gottlieb:
Yeah. Well, again, because it's in an empowered environment, mistakes aren't punished, they're just simply, it's indecision that's frowned upon. So, bye. By encouraging people to make decisions. And I'll give you an example.
Brian Gottlieb:
In the home improvement business, let's say we're doing some replacement windows for somebody, and somebody doesn't like, the customer doesn't like the trim on the window, and they complain to the installer, and the installer says, I don't know what to do about it. It's in the contract. I'm sorry. And it gets escalated to their manager, and their manager says, I don't know what to tell you. It's in the contract.
Brian Gottlieb:
By the time it gets to my desk, the customer wants a new house. So what you want to do is you want to try to handle it as close to the customer as possible. And guess what? They're not always going to make the right decision. But you know what?
Brian Gottlieb:
But every decision, even the wrong ones, becomes a learning opportunity or a confidence builder, one or the other. Yeah, but you have to create that environment and give permission for mistakes to happen.
Mark Graban:
And, you know, think about coaching in the aftermath of a mistake. You know, somebody who is very influential on Toyota. It was influential on me and some people at General Motors, even at the early stages of my career. Doctor W. Edwards Deming, considered a quality guru, management guru, passed away 30 years ago.
Mark Graban:
But one of the things I remember really vividly from his body of work was the idea of a leader is supposed to be a coach, not a judge. So you think of, like, annual performance reviews or even quarterly, like that. That's a judging activity. He said, well, you know, the role of a leader is to be continually coaching somebody to help ensure their performance instead of just trying to judge it after the fact. I think that that's just a key mindset difference from a lot of.
Mark Graban:
Again, maybe things are being taught at business schools.
Brian Gottlieb:
Yeah, but. But it's very true. You want to. You want to weave cult. You want to weave personal development, people development deep within the fabric of your organization.
Brian Gottlieb:
And by the way, one of the thing that if anybody walked into my office with a problem, I responded with the same seven words every single time, well, what do you think? What do you think we should do? What do you think we should do? Instead of trying to feed them the answer, well, what do you think we should do? And to kind of give them permission to think.
Mark Graban:
And if you're helping people that way, if you're helping grow people and you're in your coaching them, I bet they react to that. What do you think we should do? Question. They're not saying, well, hey, Brian doesn't help me, so I'm never coming back to him. Well, no, that's not your intent in saying, what do you think we should do?
Mark Graban:
It's all in the tone and the way it's being done. I don't ask you to role play a situation a little bit. Let's say I came to you and said, you know, Brian, we've got this problem. You asked me, what do you think?
Brian Gottlieb:
What do you think we should do?
Mark Graban:
And I say, well, I I don't know. We just discovered the problem, Brian. I don't know.
Brian Gottlieb:
Okay, so what do you think we should do?
Mark Graban:
We should probably go out and kind of make sure we understand the situation a little bit better. The quote, unquote proverbial fire is out.
Brian Gottlieb:
Sure.
Mark Graban:
So I don't. Well, I don't know. Can we take some time to go talk to the team and we'll see what we come up with?
Brian Gottlieb:
What a great idea. What else do you think we could do?
Mark Graban:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, then they might come back and say, well, we've got some ideas, but we're gonna have to spend some money. We need some approval or support for that.
Brian Gottlieb:
Yeah. And I think those are all those talk about a healthy conversation. When you have your team bringing a solution to you, I think it's great. But, yeah, sometimes when you say, what do you think? What do you think we should do?
Brian Gottlieb:
They say, I don't know. Sometimes you have to ask it a couple of times. Let's talk about it. I mean, what are our options? What do you think you should do?
Brian Gottlieb:
What do you think we should do? And then it's kind of steering them. So it's really sometimes not about just giving them the answer, but again, helping them find, helping, asking the right question, getting them to really think about their business. They're closest to the business. They're going to have the answers inside of them.
Brian Gottlieb:
They just need permission to speak to them. And look, even when people make a mistakes, you know, it's okay to be wrong. Just don't be wrong for long. You know, that was kind of the other part of it. It's okay to be wrong.
Brian Gottlieb:
Don't be wrong for long.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. And I love that. I love the way that rhymes. But it's okay to be wrong. And if we can acknowledge that we're being wrong on a small scale, then we won't be wrong for long.
Brian Gottlieb:
Correct. Correct. It's getting off of, and all of us, even as leaders, sometimes we get so married to a bad decision that we go all in on it and it's never good. So I've hired people and promoted people that shouldn't have been, you know, we're going to make, we're going to, we're going to make decisions. Some of them are not going to be correct.
Brian Gottlieb:
Don't, don't be married to a bad decision.
Mark Graban:
Yeah, well, and I was reading, I mean, this is recent corporate history. You know, there's a couple of books that have been written about what I'll call the old ge, you know, as that company has changed and evolved and, you know, spun off and has different leadership now. But going back to the Jack Welch era, the Jeffrey immelt era, there's just story after story in a couple of these books of, you know, the scenario being Jeff immelt wanted to buy some business and a lot of people thought it was a really bad idea, but the culture was one of, like, oh, that's Jeff's pet project. No, you don't challenge Jeff. And then, you know, so people have learned, you know, they, they learn to keep quiet.
Mark Graban:
They're conditioned by Jeff for the company and the culture and then the deals, a dud. And then, you know, Jeff Vilmel would say, well, like, well, if, if you people were opposed to this, you should have spoken up. And I'm like, well, come on. Like that.
Brian Gottlieb:
Yeah.
Mark Graban:
Do you not realize what you, I mean, like, it's just kind of mind boggling to me that somebody with all the formal education experience and a CEO of one of the world's most important companies seemingly, like, didn't see those connections. Like, you know, you've, you've bullied people into keeping quiet. That's, that's a, that's a leadership problem, not a people problem.
Brian Gottlieb:
It's one of, one of the pillars in the book is that leaders are aware of the echo of their voice. And even though. And it. Because if you come across a certain way, people are going to determine what type of day you have based on the type of the day that the leader has. And if you come across angry or pissed off or, or stressed out, people aren't going to approach you on things or if they think you're closed minded.
Brian Gottlieb:
In this, the example you just presented, people aren't going to tell you the truth. And it's not always about what we say. It's sometimes just in how we act. You know, you think about the manager that's sitting in a meeting or the leader that's sitting in a meeting with hearing new information. And once they get it, they're playing on their phone and they're checking emails and look, it's the leader's responsibility because that has a big echo to stay present, not until you get it, but until the last person in the room gets it.
Brian Gottlieb:
All those things really make up leadership. That, to your point, aren't necessarily taught in universities, but they're super key to building a great team.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. And leadership makes such a difference. I've been a big fan for a long time, even going back to following his previous company. But Larry Culpde hired in as the first outsider CEO of GE in their 120 plus year history. I saw him speak at a big lean manufacturing conference in late 2022 where he was talking about the need to shift the culture.
Mark Graban:
And it starts with him and how he was encouraging people to bring bad news forward faster and that he and other leaders had to react well when people brought bad news forward. So trying to retrain people. Yeah. It's not going to be, as he put it, a shoot the messenger culture anymore. I think that's so powerful.
Brian Gottlieb:
Yeah, I agree with you. And it's equally important when we're trying to find, like, the root cause of a problem. Right. Because people get very defensive and the idea of separating people from process. Yeah.
Brian Gottlieb:
I think it's important that, hey, we have the right people. Let's talk about where our process is broken that created this situation and really focusing people on that, because you're right, people get very defensive. It wasn't my fault. It was their fault. It's not about fault, it's about where's the process broken.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. And if people aren't being blamed or punished, then there's less need. I mean, maybe there's always some maybe human need on a psychological level to deflect. You're going to feel bad if something was your fault. But more often, these are systemic problems people are involved in as opposed to it being their fault.
Mark Graban:
And the more we can do to focus on learning and not hitting the guardrail the next time. I think the better off everyone is individually, the better off the business is.
Brian Gottlieb:
Yeah, yeah, I think that's spot on. I think that's spot on. And it does require reminding people that often and always that, look, we're trying to coin an old phrase from COVID we're in this together kind of, but really we are as an organization. It's a team, not, they're not employees, it's a team. And how do you move the team forward?
Mark Graban:
Yeah, so one other thing I was going to ask you before we wrap up, brian kind of thinking of a connection to Jack Welch. And one of the things he said that maybe made, I think, good sense was as you write about kind of a two by two matrix. Business schools love two by two matrices also, but thinking of individual performance and culture. Fitzhen right. And Jack Welch says in his retirement, before he passed, he was talking about how companies need to sometimes make the tough decision of, you've got a high performer in sales or some area, but they're culturally toxic.
Mark Graban:
This happens sometimes. Hospitals, top surgeon in an operating room, world class clinical performance, but no one likes working with them. So I don't know if he always lived by that, but I think it was a good thing to encourage leaders to think about. What's your view of a matrix of how do you try to coach somebody who scores well on the performance axis but not on the culture axis?
Brian Gottlieb:
Yeah. Well, first of all, they can't be ignored. And look, an organization needs alignment. And there's a philosophy out there that you take the high performer, low culture fit and you isolate them so you get the benefit of their performance without ruining the rest of the team. I don't think it's a good idea to start isolating people inside of your organization when you're chasing alignment, but on the other side of the quadrant, you have the high culture fit, low performer, the person you absolutely love but isn't hitting their targets.
Brian Gottlieb:
You coach a high culture fit low performer using short, measurable KPI's. You coach the high performer low culture Fitzhe using alignment to the mission and vision statement of your business. It's about behaviors. Hey, you're hitting all your numbers, but here's where your performance might be lacking. So let's, here's where your behaviors might be lacking.
Brian Gottlieb:
Let's talk about some activities and actions that can really help move that past where we are today.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. And I imagine there were times as hard as you might have tried or wanting wanted things to work out. The coaching isn't effective and you have to choose to exit somebody from the business.
Brian Gottlieb:
You sometimes you just have to give people an opportunity to be successful somewhere else. It's not, not the perfect choice, but it is for the business. It is for the business because to tolerate inconsistency and chaos and all of these sorts of things will just eventually bring the entire business down. Because what it does is it actually normalizes it. And when you normalize that kind of behavior, congratulations, you've now set a new culture for your business, one that tolerates these sorts of things.
Brian Gottlieb:
That's not the type of culture I ever want to have in an organization.
Mark Graban:
Right. Right. Well, our guest today again, Brian Gottlieb, the book available now is beyond the hammer, a fresh approach to leadership, culture and building high performance teams. Yes, a fresh approach indeed. And I'm excited to read the book and I hope others, we'll go check it out.
Mark Graban:
It sounds like it's going to help a lot of people. Is your lessons and stories today, Brian, have helped me and I know helped others too.
Brian Gottlieb:
Yeah. I really appreciate you having me on your show. Very much appreciated. The book is available print, audio and ebook. I think you'll find it both engaging and actionable.
Brian Gottlieb:
So I think both of those things are really awesome about it.
Mark Graban:
Did you read the audiobook or hire someone to do that?
Brian Gottlieb:
Interesting story about that. So the book is in two sections, right. The first section is a parable. It's a story of a contractor that's struggling misalignment, all the things we talked about. And the second half is very actionable because the first half has characters in it.
Brian Gottlieb:
I didn't feel comfortable reading a parable. I read the second half, but I collaborated with my favorite narrator of all time. His name is Eduardo Ballerini.
Mark Graban:
He does he a rock star in audiobook?
Brian Gottlieb:
Oh gosh. Yeah. So he read the parable and just brings these characters to life. It is such a great listen it really terrific.
Mark Graban:
Yeah. Well, I'm glad that turned out well. So it sounds like the right approach for a fresh book on these topics. So, Brian, and for the listener, I'll make sure there are links in the show, notes to all of that, the book website and more. So, Brian, thanks.
Mark Graban:
Thanks again. This has been great.
Brian Gottlieb:
Thank you, my friend. Appreciate your time. Thank you. Thanks.
Episode Summary and More
Leadership Beyond the Hammer: Growing People to Build Businesses
Introduction to Brian Gottlieb's Journey
Brian Gottlieb, an inspiring Harvard Business School alum, transformed a modest $3,000 startup into a thriving multistate enterprise valued at nearly $200 million. Recognized on the Inc. 5000 list for four consecutive years and as Wisconsin's best workplace, Brian's businesses have a proven record of success. His newest venture is authoring a book, Beyond the Hammer: A Fresh Approach to Leadership, Culture, and Building High-Performance Teams. This article unpacks some of the wisdom and experiences Brian shares about building businesses and nurturing teams.
The Unconventional Path to Success
Embracing Mistakes and Regrets
Brian's career journey is an unconventional one, marked by an initial regret of not pursuing formal education immediately after school. Instead of college, he ventured into selling pots, pans, and home improvement projects. For over 40 years, he viewed this as a mistake until a pivotal moment made him reconsider. Unable to secure jobs due to the lack of a degree, Brian decided to start his own business. This decision eventually led him to create a successful enterprise, proving that non-traditional paths can indeed lead to substantial success.
Turning Regret into Opportunity
Faced with the challenge of his incomplete formal education, Brian realized that what he saw as a weakness was actually a fear he needed to overcome. His acceptance and completion of an executive education program at Harvard Business School not only equipped him with essential skills but also transformed his approach to leadership. It underscored the idea that perceived weaknesses can often be sources of untapped potential.
Building a Business from the Ground Up
The Sunroom Company
Brian started his first home improvement company in 2009 with just $3,000, a plastic folding table, and a friend's warehouse. Initially focusing on sunroom additions, the company later expanded to include bathroom remodeling, replacement windows, exterior decks, and kitchen refacing. Over the years, the company grew to employ 600 people and generated $150 million in annual revenue, a testament to the scalability of well-executed business ideas.
The Education of an Entrepreneur
Brian's real-world MBA came from observing and learning from other businesses during his consulting days. He kept a detailed journal noting what practices to adopt and which ones to avoid if he ever started his own business. This practical education, combined with his desire to create a business woven into the communities it served, laid the foundation for his company's success.
The Importance of Culture in Business
Creating Mission-Driven Jobs
One of Brian's core philosophies is giving people a mission, not just a job. During the 2008 economic downturn, the sight of people losing their jobs profoundly impacted him. This experience motivated him to build a business where employees felt a sense of purpose and mission, which he believes is often overlooked in traditional business education focused more on finance and less on human elements.
The Fabric of Success
Brian states that to replicate his company's performance, one must replicate its culture—a difficult but essential factor for success. Beyond impressive technology or market strategies, the success of his business lay in its cultural foundation, ensuring employees were not just workers but integral parts of a community-focused mission.
Growing Leaders, Not Just Businesses
Beyond Literal and Figurative Hammers
To truly scale a business, Brian emphasizes the necessity of going ‘beyond the hammer.’ This involves growing and empowering people rather than focusing solely on technical operations. A meaningful takeaway from his book is that business owners must shift from being the sole problem solvers to developing leaders within their teams who can handle responsibilities effectively.
Empowerment Over Control
Traditional management styles often wield control like a hammer, punishing mistakes rather than fostering growth. Brian advocates for a leadership style that values empowerment over punitive measures. He highlights that businesses should be driven by trust and learning opportunities rather than rigid policies and fear of mistakes.
Navigating the Entrepreneurial Landscape
The Learning Mindset
A significant commonality among successful entrepreneurs, whether college-educated or not, is a learning mindset. School helps exercise this learning muscle, but lifelong learning and adaptation are crucial. As businesses grow, the shift from an entrepreneur-driven model to a team-driven model becomes vital for sustainable success.
Building Culture from the Start
When starting a business, founders often focus on immediate survival. However, long-term success requires a proactive approach in building the right company culture from the beginning. This culture should prioritize employee development and community involvement as much as it does product development and market expansion.
Brian's journey from regret to remarkable success illustrates that the path to effective leadership and thriving businesses is more about cultivating and empowering people than about any singular technical skill or business strategy.
Leadership Beyond the Hammer: Growing People to Build Businesses
Building a Business from the Ground Up (Continued)
The Shift to a Training Organization
Brian came to a pivotal realization that truly accelerated his company's growth: understanding that they were not just a home improvement business, but fundamentally a training organization. This transformation was not only critical for him but also for his entire team. By shifting focus towards developing their employees' skills and talents, they cultivated an environment ripe for both personal and professional growth.
This change in mindset echoes a principle from Toyota, a company often revered for its advanced manufacturing and people development strategies. Toyota operates on the belief that their primary product is not cars, but developed and empowered individuals. They emphasize building people before building vehicles, a philosophy that proves pivotal in ensuring long-term success and customer satisfaction.
The Andon Cord and Root Cause Problem SolvingA powerful tool used at Toyota is the Andon cord, which sits at every station in the manufacturing line. It allows any worker to halt the production if they detect a problem. This empowerment enables individuals to not only spot issues but also engage actively in root-cause problem solving. This parallels one of Brian’s core beliefs — empowering employees as an essential leadership strategy. When an organization places trust in its employees to identify and resolve issues, it fosters a culture of continual improvement and shared responsibility.
Empowerment Through Asking the Right QuestionsBrian emphasizes that as a leader, knowing the right questions to ask can be more impactful than having all the answers. Leaders should focus on long-term strategic thinking, even at the potential expense of short-term gains. For example, teaching employees how to ask “Why?” multiple times to get to the root cause of a problem empowers them to think critically and develop problem-solving skills that benefit the entire organization.
This is especially relevant as organizations grow. The CEO and upper management often get further from frontline operations, making it crucial for the layers of leadership and employees below them to be adept at making informed decisions. Trusting employees to handle decision-making and problem-solving fosters an environment where innovation and efficiency flourish.
The Importance of Culture in Business (Continued)
Culture as a Competitive Advantage
One of the main challenges businesses face, particularly with experienced hires, is cultural integration. When an enterprise recruits individuals from diverse professional backgrounds, each may bring their own native corporate culture which can conflict with the intended organizational culture. Brian points out that culture is often determined by the lowest level of acceptable behavior within the business.
Focusing on cultivating a consistent, positive culture provides a competitive edge in attracting and retaining talent, even amidst labor shortages. An organization that trains and develops its people from within can ensure that cultural values are instilled from the start, avoiding any potential clash that may arise from external hires.
Stay Interviews for Continuous Improvement
A proactive approach Brian implemented is the concept of “stay interviews.” Unlike exit interviews, which only provide insights post-employee departure, stay interviews help identify what keeps employees engaged and what could potentially push them away while they are still within the organization.
Here are the four questions Brian’s team asks during these stay interviews:
- What makes you want to come to work every day?
- What would make you one day want to leave?
- What is something the organization is doing wrong today?
- What is something that you're not getting from your manager that you think you need?
This approach acts as a litmus test for the health of the organization's culture, enabling the leadership to make timely adjustments and address any emerging issues before they escalate.
Creating Career Progression Pathways
The ongoing labor shortage in the construction industry has long been a challenge. Brian's approach to this problem includes hiring individuals right out of high school and providing them with comprehensive training and development. This strategy not only fills immediate labor needs but also builds a loyal and skilled workforce dedicated to the company's culture and goals.
Hiring individuals without prior experience but with a hunger to learn and grow often results in better long-term outcomes compared to recruiting seasoned professionals with potentially conflicting cultural backgrounds. This “grow-your-own” model leverages cultural alignment and the nurturing of talent from the ground up.
In conclusion, businesses that pivot towards being training organizations and prioritize developing their people lay down a strong foundation for scalable success. Leadership is not just about control and execution but about empowerment and trust, fostering a culture where every team member is set up to contribute meaningfully and innovate continuously. As Brian Gottlieb's journey shows, the key to building high-performance teams lies in leadership that goes beyond the hammer and focuses on growing people. Diving Deeper into Performance Reviews
It's evident that broadening performance reviews to encompass more than just KPIs and typical business metrics can significantly benefit both leaders and employees. Conducting these reviews in a face-to-face environment often brings out richer feedback regarding how employees think and feel about the organization. This candid dialogue can also serve as a coaching opportunity, not just for the employees but also for leaders to understand better how they can support their teams. By asking questions like, “Do you have everything you need to do your job?” and “What can we do to support you?”, the review becomes an organizational evaluation, not just an individual assessment.
Empowering Decision-Makers on the Frontline
Empowering frontline workers to make decisions and handle issues as close to the source of the problem as possible is crucial. Take, for instance, the scenario of a window installer faced with a customer complaint about trim work. If the installer is conditioned to pass the issue up the chain rather than resolve it on the spot, it eventually escalates needlessly, creating frustration for both the customer and the management. Encouraging installers to take initiative and make decisions—even if they are sometimes wrong—builds confidence and turns mistakes into learning opportunities. The mantra here is simple: “It's okay to be wrong; just don't be wrong for long.”
The Role of Leaders as Coaches
Dr. W. Edwards Deming famously said that leaders should act more like coaches than judges. Instead of using performance reviews merely to rate past performance, leaders should adopt a continuous coaching mindset, helping ensure future performance. This involves asking employees thought-provoking questions like, “What do you think we should do?” rather than providing immediate answers. This approach not only empowers employees to think critically and devise their solutions but also builds their confidence and autonomy.
The Impact of Leadership on Organizational Culture
The actions and demeanor of a leader significantly shape an organization’s culture. Leaders must be aware of the ‘echo of their voice'—their attitude and behavior set the tone for the entire team. If a leader shows signs of stress, anger, or close-mindedness, it stifles open communication. Conversely, creating a culture where bad news is shared promptly and safely can help address issues before they escalate. As highlighted by Larry Culp at GE, it’s essential to foster an environment where bringing forward problems is encouraged and met with support rather than blame.
Separating People from Process
When problems arise, it’s critical to focus on the processes rather than individuals. Blame can create a defensive atmosphere, but addressing systemic issues encourages a more collaborative and problem-solving mindset. For instance, in a scenario where a business process fails, the discussion should revolve around identifying and fixing the process rather than blaming individuals who were caught in the failing system. This paradigm shift helps prevent recurrence and supports continuous improvement.
Handling High Performers with Poor Cultural Fit
It's a common dilemma in many organizations: what to do with high performers who are a poor fit culturally. While some might suggest isolating these individuals to mitigate their negative impact on the team, this approach can create further discord. An effective strategy is to coach these high performers on aligning their behaviors with the organization's mission and values. This may involve explicit discussions about how their actions impact team dynamics and the broader corporate culture. The goal is to foster alignment without compromising performance.
On the other end of the spectrum, nurturing high culture fits who are low performers involves setting short, measurable KPIs to help them meet performance expectations. The underlying principle is to maintain alignment and cohesion within the team, ensuring everyone is pulling in the same direction.
Conclusion
Understanding and implementing these strategies can turn performance reviews from a simple evaluation tool into a powerful means of enhancing organizational culture and employee engagement. Leaders must embrace their role as coaches, fostering an environment that encourages proactive problem-solving, open communication, and continuous improvement. By doing so, they not only elevate their team’s performance but also build a resilient and adaptive organization, ready to face future challenges head-on. Continuing Organizational Culture and Employee Alignment
Addressing Misalignment and Inconsistency
In some cases, despite best efforts, an employee may continue to misalign with the organizational culture and values. In such situations, sometimes the most compassionate and beneficial action for all parties involved is to provide these individuals with an opportunity to be successful elsewhere. This decision, while not easy, is crucial for maintaining the integrity and consistency of the workplace culture.
Tolerating inconsistency and disruptive behaviors can inadvertently set a precedent that undermines the organization's standards. Over time, what was once considered an exception becomes a normalized part of the company's culture. By allowing such behaviors to persist, you risk creating an environment where inconsistency, chaos, and misalignment are the norms rather than the exceptions. This not only affects overall performance but also demoralizes employees who strive to uphold the company’s values.
Marking the Shift Towards a Positive Culture
Leaders looking to instill a positive culture should make it clear that behaviors and attitudes misaligned with the organization’s values are not acceptable. However, it's also important to provide support and coaching to help employees align more closely with these values. This dual approach ensures that while standards are upheld, employees also have the support they need to succeed.
When it becomes clear that an individual cannot or will not align with the organization’s culture, it might be in everyone's best interest for that person to find a role in a different organization where they can thrive. While this can be a difficult decision, it ultimately helps to protect the workplace culture and ensure that it remains conducive to high performance and cohesion.
Drawing Parallels from “Beyond the Hammer”
In Beyond the Hammer: A Fresh Approach to Leadership, Culture and Building High Performance Teams by Brian Gottlieb, such themes are explored in depth. The book underscores the importance of creating and maintaining a positive organizational culture. It's presented in two sections: a parable that humanizes the challenges of misalignment, and an actionable guide on leadership strategies.
Interestingly, the book narrates a story of a contractor facing typical dilemmas in misalignment and workplace culture. By personifying these issues through characters, it provides relatable insights while offering concrete steps in the latter half to address these challenges effectively. It’s a compelling read that promises both engagement and actionable strategies, making it a valuable resource for leaders aiming to transform their organizational culture.
Creating a Cohesive Work Environment
To prevent misalignment from becoming normalized, it is essential to set clear expectations from the start. New hires should be thoroughly onboarded with a robust orientation program that emphasizes the company’s values, mission, and workplace culture. Regular training sessions and workshops can reinforce these elements, ensuring that all employees are on the same page.
Additionally, regular performance reviews that extend beyond traditional metrics to include cultural alignment assessments can help maintain a cohesive environment. These reviews should encourage open communication, where employees feel safe discussing their challenges and seeking guidance on aligning more closely with organizational values.
Actionable Strategies for Leaders
- Set Clear Expectations: Clearly communicate the company's values and standards from the beginning.
- Provide Regular Training: Offer continuous learning opportunities focused on both skills and cultural alignment.
- Encourage Open Dialogue: Foster an environment where employees can discuss misalignments without fear of retribution.
- Align Performance Reviews: Incorporate cultural fit assessments into regular performance reviews.
- Supportive Transition: When necessary, assist misaligned employees in finding a more suitable environment where they can succeed.
By adhering to these strategies, leaders can ensure that their teams not only perform well but also contribute positively to a thriving, consistent organizational culture. This proactive approach helps safeguard the organization’s values and drives collective success.