At the I-40 and Morgan Road exit here in Oklahoma City, four big travel stops sit side by side: Love's, Pilot, Flying J, and TA. The gas is the same. The Snickers bars and the Dr Pepper are the same.
And the Love's is the hardest one to get to. You go through three lights and a couple of turns. The others are right off the ramp.
But that Love's is one of the company's top customer service locations.
I heard that story from Keith Varner, who leads leader development at Love's Travel Stops, in his keynote before a Dale Carnegie panel on talent, culture,e and growing leaders. I was one of the panelists. People don't drive past three other stops for the gas. They do it because of how they're treated when they walk in.
None of that happens by accident. A leader put it there. That's the point of this whole post: company culture starts at the top. Here's what I shared on the panel.
What is company culture, really?
People make culture sound complicated. I keep it simple.
Your culture is the actions that happen in your business every single day.
It's not what's on the wall or the website. It's what your people actually do, day in and day out, when nobody is checking. Your culture is happening whether you planned it or not. If you don't build it on purpose, you'll look up one day and see a culture you never chose.
Why company culture starts at the top
Culture flows down, not up. Whatever happens at the top gets pushed down to everyone else.
Many companies focus all their attention on the front line. They train the front line, and they blame the front line. But any breakdown on the front line directly reflects on the whole organization.
So if you want to change your culture, start with leadership. Leaders have to see the gaps, commit to fixing them, and show it in how they act every day.
How leaders shape company culture: 4 practices
1. Define who you are before you hire
Before you look for talent, define who you are as a company. What do you stand for? What kind of person fits here?
Ask five leaders in your company what you look for in a new hire, and you'll get five different answers. None of them will be wrong, but they won't be the same, and that confusion trickles down into every hiring decision.
If you don't define it, they will decide it. Once it's defined, give your managers a simple way to spot it, so they can look at a candidate and say, "Yes, this person fits."
2. Show your team you care before you ask them to care
This is the biggest mistake I see leaders make. They want their team to care about customers, but they don't show the team that they care about them.
You can't see someone as just the person who fills a role anymore. You have to see the whole person: their family, their goals, and sometimes what's going on outside of work, like their finances or buying a first home.
The employee experience drives the customer experience. If your people don't feel cared for, someone else will make them feel that way, and they'll leave.
3. Use the 90/10 rule in your one-on-ones
If you're not holding regular one-on-ones with your team, start there. Make them about the person, not just the job. Let them talk 90% of the time while you talk 10%. Your main job is to listen.
A simple way to guide the conversation is FORD:
- Family: What's going on at home?
- Occupation: What do they want to do for a living?
- Recreation: What do they love to do in their free time?
- Dreams: What's the one big thing they'd love to get done?
Maybe their dream isn't to stay at your company forever. That's okay. You're still helping them grow, and people remember the leaders who did that.
4. Know your non-negotiables
The last question on the panel was about non-negotiables. What has to be true about someone for them to fit your culture?
Mine are simple. First, you have to like people. In a service business, if you don't like people, it won't work, no matter how skilled you are. Second, you have to be coachable. Almost anything can be trained if someone is willing to learn.
What are you putting into your people?
I ended my answer on one-on-ones with a line Disney is known for: "We don't put people into Disney. We put Disney into our people."
The Love's story proves it. It's the same gas and the same snacks at the same exit, and the difference is what the leaders put into their people.
Frequently asked questions
Does company culture really start at the top?
Yes. Your team watches what leaders do far more closely than what they say. If leaders don't live the standard every day, no amount of front-line training will hold it in place.
How do you change company culture?
Start with leadership. Define who you are and what great looks like, show your team you care, and hold regular one-on-ones where you mostly listen. Culture changes when the daily actions change.
What is the 90/10 rule in one-on-one meetings?
The employee talks 90% of the time and the leader talks 10%. The leader's job is to listen and learn what matters to the person, using a guide like FORD: family, occupation, recreation and dreams.
What should you look for when hiring for a service business?
Look for people who genuinely like people and who are coachable. Most skills can be trained. Liking people and being coachable are a lot harder to teach.
See how your culture shows up for your customers.
Your culture is what your customers feel. If you want to see where yours stands, take the free Client Retention Assessment. It's 15 questions, takes about 3 minutes, and gives you a plan built for your business.
To your success,
Francis