How Genius Leadership Creates a Joyful & Profitable Culture
Read time 3 minutes.
Required ingredients: courage, vision, integrity.
Roadblocks to genius leadership: Psychosclerosis — hardening of the mind that degenerates into spirit-numbing “same-old-same-old.”
Step #1 — Get Clear on the Values (this is what’s important to us).
Communicate those values.
Senior management models those values.
Zappos is a model to follow. They create a “Culture Book” in which employees explain what the Zappos’ culture means to them.
Step #2: Articulate the Vision (this is where we want to go) for the company.
Zappos’ vision: making sure every interaction with the customer results in them saying, “That was the best customer service I have ever had.”
Step #3: Make sure everyone understands and enacts the mission.(this is what we have to do to get there)
Zappos” mission: to offer “best service in the industry.”
Step #3: Develop people’s competencies and motivation that will deliver the mission.
Zappos’ corporate employees, regardless of position, participate in a 4-week customer experience training program, at full salary. After the first week of training, the new hires are offered $2,000 to leave the company, no questions asked. Zappos wants people to be there for the love of the job and not the money. About 97% say, “no thank you.”
Genius leadership asks, and finds answers to the following:
* Is this a compelling place to work?
* Are you bought-in to what we are doing here?
* Does every person in management exhibit behaviours consistent with the company’s stated core values?
* Would you want your child to work here?
* Are your aware of, and have you been asked to contribute to significant changes in the company?
* We would like you to enjoy working here. And we want you to also look forward to your time off. What do we do that gets in the way of letting go of your job stresses and enjoying your personal life?
Eradicating the world of spirit-killing, unhealthy workplaces is a noble, profitable cause for companies to take on — even in this Great Disruption.
Depression is the fastest growing mental health issue in the world. Most companies are, I think, in denial about how much that is eroding their employees’ joy and the company’s profits.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out.
It requires a business leadership group that has the courage, the integrity, the vision to dare to be different in order to be great – like Zappos, Southwest Airlines, and Westjet.