Forbes Coaches Council
How To Create A Work Environment Defined By Positive Culture
You hear a lot about the importance of culture in the workplace, for good reason. If you have a dysfunctional culture that prizes profits over people, for instance, you might find yourself with headlines like the long-gone Enron or the embattled Wells Fargo. The wrong culture can destroy a company, and the right one can help your business soar.
When you’re creating a company’s culture, think beyond the mission statement and values. You also want to consider something else that doesn’t seem to be discussed as much — your company’s language.
Language matters. It’s why you often hear employees referred to as teammates, and employers will often spout out clichés, such as, “There is no ‘I’ in ‘team.’” But too often a company’s language ends up sounding identical to that of every other business out there. In other words, the language sounds corporate, and so phrases that should electrify and energize employees can end up sapping them of energy.
That’s why we have always taken an entrepreneurial-driven approach at our company. In fact, I’ve striven to make sure that our organization is nothing like a corporation. There is no corporate hierarchy or titles, for instance. Corporations do a lot of good in this world, of course, but I believe the best way to create a positive company culture is to act like you aren’t a corporation. The way to start with that, I’d suggest, is to pay attention to the language you’re using. Ideally, you’re forging a language that’s not only positive but empowering, inclusive and exciting. Here’s what I mean.
Your and your employees’ titles should be uplifting. I never refer to myself as the CEO — I refer to myself as the visionary founder. I know it might sound like a little much to some, but it’s a title that always reminds me to live true to that ideal — and to keep innovating and thinking of ways to continually improve the company.
In fact, members of our team all have unique, identifiable titles, and you may want yours to have the same. For example, we have a strategic integrator, business development strategist and performance enhancement coach, just to name a few. Your team members should have titles that inspire them to do better work.
Your language should send a positive message to your clients, customers and others. For instance, many companies in the hospitality industry have stopped calling their customers “customers.” They refer to them as “guests.” It’s a subtle message to the customer that they’re more than a customer.
Some freelance writers have stopped calling themselves freelance writers, feeling that “freelance” has a negative connotation with some people and devalues what they do. At my company, we stay away from calling our home office the “headquarters,” because it reminds people of corporate America, and that’s what our seekers are trying to get away from. Instead, we call our headquarters a “performance enhancement center” — which leads to my next point.
You can create your own company’s language. Don’t like “teammates”? You’d rather go with “partners”? That’s fine. You don’t have to copy what other companies are doing. In fact, it’s better if you don’t.
Every company is different, even if you’re in an industry that has a seemingly infinite amount of competitors, which is why creating your own lingo can be helpful with distinguishing yourself from everyone else. But there’s more to it than that: It can also make you feel like you’re in a club or at least the same boat with your teammates, co-pilots or whatever you call your employees. For instance, we often refer to our clients as “seekers,” and the goal is to help them reach a point of clarity by helping them identify and achieve their unique income, lifestyle, wealth and equity (ILWE) goals.
It may sound like mumbo jumbo to those new to the language, but your own way of communicating can help with telling the story of your brand, and if you think about it, actual storytellers use this strategy all the time.
For instance, on the AMC TV series The Walking Dead, you never hear characters call the zombies “zombies.” They call them “walkers” or “biters” or “creepers” or “lurkers” or a gazillion other terms. And if you’re a fan of the show and you talk to another fan about “walkers,” they know exactly where you’re coming from, and you both can have a long conversation about the show, even if you’re complete strangers. HBO’s Game of Thrones has its own language, as well.
Again, it might seem silly at first, but there’s something inclusive and empowering about sharing a language and form of shorthand with the people you work with every day. Besides, every industry has its own lingo. Why shouldn’t your company have its own, as well?
But it’s much more than that. A common language is more than creating a positive company culture. You’re also trying to make a connection with your customers, clients, guests or whoever you’re targeting. You want to offer a way of speaking and writing that, once your clients learn the language, is easy to understand and makes them feel empowered and excited to work with you.
After all, it’s always a good thing to be able to say that you speak your clients’ language. In fact, that’s imperative. But in a way, it’s even more impressive when you have them learning and speaking yours.