Company Culture: Vision, Mission & Values – Part 6

Only Positive Drama Allowed!

There is drama in every culture, so a conversation on culture wouldn’t be complete without talking about drama. I once had a business coach and told him, “We don’t have any drama around here.”

He looked back at me, “Sure you do. You have drama! It’s the drama that you create.”

And so I was like, “Yeah, okay, I’m down with that. It’s the drama that I create.”

Unfortunately, a lot of times, the drama that the boss creates is negative. So I have tried to make sure that my drama is positive; that it is a winning, upbeat drama.

It could be about things happening in the company – how employees donate blood and get four hours of paid time off (PTO), or how we hit our 500th Google review and are having a flash party. Something like that creates positive drama instead of the bickering or complaining you might have if you left a drama vacuum.

The Right Kind of Winning

What type of drama is your company experiencing every single day? Griping? Criticism? Blaming? Or is the drama about winning and hitting goals? There’s an old familiar saying, “Winning solves all problems.” You want winning to be the drama in your organization.

When I say winning, I don’t mean winning at the expense of coworkers or other teams in the company- not even winning at the expense of competition in the marketplace. This is not you against anybody. When I talk about winning, I mean doing well for yourself, your team, and your company.

This means hitting goals. You are hitting goals and winning against those goals. Then, you are rewarded. Goals and focus. Well, we’ve got drama at Nolan Painting, and the management team and I create it. If I hear about other types of drama in our company, I head to the source to learn what it is about. If it’s negative, it backs down, or we solve the issue. If it’s a good drama, we incorporate it. This is how you build organizational muscle. Your company needs it.

Remember, if you’re not putting the culture in the company, someone else is. And as a business owner, it’s incredibly rewarding to decide what that culture will be and then develop creative ways to design, support, and encourage it.

Vision. Mission. Values. Muscle. See you Thursday.