Tag Archives: culture

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4 Ways To Shred A Culture of Entitlement

“The quickest ways to kill entitlement are to regularly acknowledge what others have contributed to your current levels of success and always seek to increase this for others around you.” Andy Mason

 

What is a Culture of Entitlement?

A culture of entitlement means that your employees arrogantly believe that they deserve a certain level of unreasonable privileges. This belief is often built on the incorrect assumption that the current level of success of the organization is because of the work of the current generation of employees. Typically, nothing could be further from the truth. We are always building our organizations on the shoulders of the giants that have gone before us.

Where Does It Come From?

In the boom and bust world of the oil and gas business, a culture of entitlement always seems to take hold at the peak of the boom periods. This arrogance is created by the boom mentality where the price of oil increases and oil companies are scrambling to get more oil out of the ground by drilling new wells, creating new facilities and desperately trying to hire staff to make everything work. This desperation to hire results in escalating wages, options, perks and coddling that are simply not warranted and not sustainable.

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The Secret To Building A Successful Organization

“As leaders, we should think of ourselves as teachers and try to create companies in which teaching is seen as a valued way to contribute to the success of the whole.” Ed Catmull

 

Here is the secret: Real leaders are teachers! If you are not teaching your staff, you are missing a huge leadership opportunity and limiting the overall potential for your business.

I started doing noon hour training sessions in the mid-90’s. I think the first few sessions I did were on goal setting (based on Les Hewitt’s The Power of Focus) and they were pretty rough (a special shout out to all those who attended and never walked out!) However, the more sessions I ran, the better I got. I then encouraged others to do the same thing and we ended up with all kinds of employee led training sessions.

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Do Your Employees Care About Your Customers?

What does customer service look like in your business? Do your employees care about your customers are they just “doing their job”?

It is critical for your business survival and growth that your employees truly care for your customers rather than treat them like just another generic transaction.  A customer service mindset must be purposefully built and nurtured in your organization rather than being left to chance.

I recently traveled to Houston for some business meetings. When I arrived at the airport and got my rental car it was pouring rain. By the time I got onto the Southwest freeway at 5:30 PM it resembled a large parking lot and not a freeway! After fighting the traffic for about an hour, I pulled off the freeway at Lakewood and had dinner at the Café Express.

After dinner, I jumped into my rental and drove to the hotel (Sugar Land Marriott) without incident. When I arrived and popped the trunk to get my luggage, there was nothing there! Someone had broken into my car at the restaurant and stolen my luggage! Fortunately, I had my computer with me in Café Express so it never got stolen but everything else did.

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Why Are You Worried About Losing Employees to Competitors?

“I’m amused when other agencies try to hire my people away. They’d have to ‘hire’ the whole environment. For a flower to blossom, you need the right soil as well as the right seed” William Bernback

William Bernback really hit the nail on the head with this quote. If we, as leaders, have created the proper environment within our organizations, we should not be concerned about losing our best employees to the competition because no one will want to leave. We will have a culture that attracts and retains employees and few recruitment agencies will stand a chance in luring our staff away .

The million dollar question is, what does this “miracle” environment or culture look like? What sort of “soil” do we need to have to promote the growth of our employees and our business?

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How Much Are Poor Listening Skills Costing You?

“Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” James the Great

I cannot even count the number of times that I have broken this rule! Listening seems so easy . . . just sit there with your mouth closed and ears open without jumping in with an opinion or advice. Turns out it’s not that easy for people like me!

Listening is definitely something that takes patience, practice and discipline to do properly. However, it is incredibly important for every leader to master the art of listening. The benefits of listening to those around you can be huge while the downside of not listening can devastate your relationships, career and business!

When you are quick to speak and you listen very little, you will steamroll over the great thoughts, ideas, solutions and feelings of all those around you. If no one gets a chance to fully explain their thoughts before you interrupt them with your advice and opinions, you will begin to isolate yourself from the full potential of these people. You are slowly choking off their willingness to engage you in conversation and this means that you are choking their potential, your potential and the organization’s potential.

When you fail to listen to someone, you;