Consistency Builds Momemtum

Let’s consider Gino Wickman’s statement again: “Once they’re defined, you must hire, fire, review, reward, and recognize people based on these core values. This is how to build a thriving culture around them.” If we’re willing to take this to heart and consistently act on everything according to our values, momentum will build. I’d love to claim that this will be easy and happen immediately; that’s just not how things work. In every industry, there’s always that one example that seems to wreck the curve, appearing to be the overnight model of perfection. We’ve all heard the phrase that “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.” While that may indeed be what we see from a distance, my three and half decades in the workplace and over twenty-five years studying leadership have shown me that the grass in those organizations becomes that way in one of two ways: it’s growing over top a septic field or someone put in a hell of a lot of work to make it that way. 

Just in case you’ve always lived in a metropolitan area and you’re not familiar with a septic field, I’ll paint you a picture. Cindy and I live in a rural area that doesn’t have water and sewer systems that are maintained by a municipality. Our water comes from a well and a septic system was installed as our home was built. In the driest weeks of the summer, our grass gets very crispy and brown except directly above the seven drain lines from our septic tank. (Thank God our well has provided a steady flow of water through it all.) All of the used water, and everything else that goes down the drain or gets flushed, is processed through the septic tank located just outside the house and the liquid is dispersed to those lines. I’ll spare you the complete lesson on how it all works but, as you can image, we wouldn’t want to plant a garden in that area regardless of how green the grass stays. To keep the rest of our two and a half acres that green all summer long would be a monumental undertaking.

The companies I’ve seen that have built thriving cultures around their core values by developing the discipline to “hire, fire, review, reward, and recognize people based on these core values” are those where the leaders, often just one or two to begin with, have invested a tremendous amount effort to build the momentum necessary to get anyone else’s buy-in. But as those leaders have done that consistently over time, and the leaders they’ve worked to develop around them follow suit, that momentum builds - often much more slowly than anyone would like. In the cases where that green grass is over top the septic field, where a magical culture appears to have popped up overnight, the fresh vegetables served at the company picnic will eventually taste like the crap they were grown in…

If you’ve ever noticed how perfect a Major League Baseball field looks, just know it’s not by accident. Not only are entire teams of people involved in getting it to this point and keeping it that way, they’re very protective of their work. Only the players go on the field, and only just before and during the games. They don’t practice there in the off-season. And those fields are covered during any other events that are hosted in the ballpark. If I put all that time, effort, and money into making my yard look that nice, I sure wouldn’t want my neighbors kids or dogs doing their business on it. When we’ve done the work to build our values into our culture, and we’ve finally built momentum around those values, we’ll need to be just as protective as the groundskeepers at a Major League ballpark or Clint Eastwood with his lawn so we’ll wrap this all up with that next.