This week on my podcast I interviewed Tim Sanders, NY Times best selling author and leadership expert. One of the great points that Tim made was that leaders who want to build a strong culture need to have culture conversations often.
He used the example of Zappos and how often they discussed culture within their organization. From the call center employee up to CEO, Tony Hsieh, they had culture conversations on a very regular basis.
I was thinking about that idea yesterday as I was at a conference talking to Chris Tomasso, who is the CEO of First Watch Restaurants. We were talking about our friend, Ken Pendery, who is now the Chairman of First Watch restaurants. I asked him what Ken’s role is and his response surprised me. He said Ken is the Chief Culture Officer, which means that his job is to go and have conversations throughout the restaurant chain and at their First Watch Restaurant University on a monthly basis as they train leaders to actively reinforce the culture of First Watch.
I think having regular culture conversations in any organization is essential if we want to reinforce a specific culture, even at the family level. We need to have conversations about what our family stands for, what we are about as a family and how we would like to grow. How often are you having those conversations with your kids and your spouse? How often are you reinforcing those values that you stand for and what you want to be?
Try implementing culture conversations into your every day.