Cultures of excellence are grounded in both high performance and high levels of care. Most go too far toward one side or the other. If you envision this as a 2×2 grid, in the lower left corner you have toxic cultures – low performance and low levels of caring. These companies don’t tend to last long, for obvious reasons.
In the upper left, valuing high levels of caring and tolerating low levels of performance, you’ve got a country club culture. Low performers are allowed to stick around, degrading the standard for everyone. Leaders are often nice (making you feel better) rather than kind (challenging you to get better).
In the lower right is a cutthroat culture – high levels of performance, low levels of caring. Can these companies perform at a high level? Of course! You see it all the time. The question is, at what cost. People are often used, abused, and discarded. High performers are praised regardless of the means they use to get there. The cost to these behaviors is not always readily apparent, but it is insidious and steep. Eventually it does catch up with you, see Enron as a classic example.
The culture everyone wants is one of excellence. The upper right box – high performance AND high degrees of caring. Why is it so rare? Because it’s damn hard not only to create, but to maintain. It’s not easy to hold the standard consistently. It’s not easy to slow down and connect and care when you have a to-do list a mile long. Much easier to burn out an employee, much easier to turn a blind eye to bad behavior when they’re your top sales associate. Slow down, put first things first, and step by step build a culture of greatness. A culture that values performance AND people. It takes a leader with clear core and a lot of nerve.
If excellence is what you value, if sustaining high performance matters to you, buckle up. The road is hard AND incredibly rewarding.
BUILT TO LEAD 