Welcome to part 2 in our series, “Why your company culture must change.” In this series, we’re discussing why your business culture isn’t a fixed set of values you scribbled with your mission statement on a napkin one night. 

We’re even taking it a step further to show that every successful company’s true values are almost virtually identical. These shared values actually define employee behavior and have more to do with their stage of development than they do their unique identity and how this is ok (in stage 3, I’ll explain why this is ok).

Culture in Fun

You made it! You’re in Fun, the second stage in the Predictable Success model. You found your profitable, sustainable market, and now it’s time to mine it! You now know enough about your business, your industry, and yourselves to start defining your culture. However, you’re probably so relieved that the bank account is now actually growing, and so scared about falling back into Early Struggle that taking three days to craft an excellent mission statement, is a total non-starter.

Instead, the values, character, and motivations that form the real (albeit informal) culture emanates directly from you, the Visionary. The company is small enough that just about everyone directly interactions with the Visionary, so it works. Success at this stage is proof that, whether intentional or unintentional, there is a strong culture. Again, regardless of the words written on the walls of your new office (Aren’t you glad you got your spare bedroom back!), are not your culture. Instead, many of those values you picked up in Early Struggle are subconsciously embedded as essential to survival. The great thing is, they work, and the more you focus on them, the deeper you’ll go into Fun.

Where Early Struggle was all about finding the profitable, sustainable market Fun is all about mining that profitable, sustainable market. The values that successful Fun companies adopt (again, this is usually unwritten and rarely matches the written culture if there is one) all center on making the most of Fun, and that means selling and doing. In Fun, whatever kind of company (or organization) you are, you are doing more of what you do than ever before because you are selling more of what you do than ever before. 

Those who are praised, promoted, and paid well are those that sell and do the most. While this may seem obvious, do note that these are not necessarily the people that have the most integrity or are the most innovative or are the best teammates. In all reality, those who sell and do really well generally don’t want to be bothered by any of those things.

Here are 5 values that drive the culture of almost every company in Fun:

• Sales
• Enthusiasm
• Agility
• Determination 
• 100% done (80% right)

Yes these really are values

Now, if you missed the first article in the series, you may be wondering, are these real values or are they just strategies. Like those who succeed in Fun, I don’t really care. If a deer is thirsty, it drinks water. No matter how idealistic the deer is, it values water. I’m not making a judgment statement; it’s just the reality of the situation. If you disagree, that’s 100% ok, but before you write me off, wait for the next article where I’ll show you why I believe these are the real values of a company in Fun and how the next stage is proof.