Give your meeting rooms names. Our offices at Ubarter.com had boardrooms named after the planets.
The boardroom furthest from the CEO’s office was called Pluto (the planet furthest from the sun). Guests would always chuckle when they were told the meeting would be held in a room called “Neptune.”
If possible, engage all your employees in the naming process. Don’t just slap a name on a boardroom without any employee input. Culture should flow from the inside out, not the other way around. And yes, it always got a huge laugh when someone asked where the CEO Dwayne was, and the reply was ‘he’s in Uranus’.
And put up huge positive sayings in vinyl letters or on canvasses you design. Pick words or sayings that add value and mean something to your staff, not lame, obscure quotes that don’t have any relevance to your team. This might not be possible right away, but as you cultivate real work culture, it’ll be a lot easier to speak the language of your employees.
One example is have a ‘Can You Imagine?’ wall – where employees, customers and suppliers can put up great ideas. Big, crazy, audacious ideas that provoke thinking. Make sure they align with company values, but be open to Also include goals and core values on the wall, that way no one will ever forget their purpose.
For more information on this topic, check out: Building a World Class Culture.
I’ve just wrapped up a 7 city speaking tour with EO & YPO in India. Crazy schedule to hit this 7 cities between Jan 8-19th – but we pulled it off.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about all the CEOs I interact with in my speaking, coaching and mentoring roles. Most of them are awesome. In fact, all of them are awesome at times, but like me, they miss on occasion too and have areas to improve on. There are a few areas I’d like each of them to work on during 2012.
