Pretty much every clinic either ignores this or pays lip service to it, however this is a huge mistake, your vision and mission for the business, and the culture that you’re looking to develop or maintain, needs to be written down for everyone involved with your business to see. And the power of this shouldn’t be minimised.
In Delivering Happiness, Tony Hsieh shares the story of how he sold his first company for $250,000,000 and tells how in the early days he was excited to go into work, he loved the people he was working with, and was having a great time.
In the early days he was offered $2,000,000 for the company but held onto it, not because it wasn’t a lot of money, but because he loved what he was doing. However, as the company grew, Tony lost the joy and eventually – just before he sold the company – he really had to drag himself into work. At first he struggled to understand why he felt like that, but when he was in work one day and looking around, he realised that the place just felt a lot different – it had grown quickly and the new people coming into the business had different attitudes and ways of doing things.
The business that Tony loved had now developed a culture and values of its own, and they were at odds with what Tony and his partners had first set up. And this meant that he no longer felt like he belonged there, nor did he want to be there.
So, Tony promised himself that the next business he was involved with would not suffer the same issues. And when he did get involved with Zappos, he worked with his team to develop a collaborative written vision, mission, and values for the company. Anyone coming into the business was shown these and it was made clear that they had to fully engage with the company’s culture.
Now this is powerful stuff, and I can wholeheartedly recommend that you consider it in your business if you don’t have it already. It’s been well documented that if people verbalise a belief, even if it’s one that they didn’t hold before, they are much more likely to act as if that belief is real.
Even if you’re sitting there thinking ‘my business has already developed a culture that I don’t like’ you have the power to change it, you just need to take action
By Alan Adams The Clinic Coach
