This was written following an interview I did with a really successful CEO of a law firm. He scaled, he sold, he’s doing ok! My measure of him wasn’t how much money he made but how the people felt about working in the business he had created. Not all cultures need to be written down but once you do that, it becomes obvious what is fuelling the success.
I interviewed a lot of people across the firm and we were able to articulate this:
- No politics. People don’t feel like they have to get one over on their colleagues to succeed. If people around them succeed, so will they.
- Tell people what you are doing if it isn’t really anything to do with them. People want to feel involved.
- Don’t have any big egos in the business.
- Say it like it is and do what you say you’ll do.
- Want people to feel like they have worked a solid day and then have time on either side for whatever else they have going on
- Want people to be really open about what they want out of their job (and acknowledge that people’s priorities change during their working life)
- Want everyone to feel trusted, really trusted, in every aspect of their job
- The hardest conversations are the ones you should always have. (If I don’t have the conversations, it affects my self-worth. The more difficult conversations you have, the easier it is.)
- Make decisions on my own ethical and moral compass
It’s a good manifesto. Better still, this is how things actually were. Their mission was to maintain it.
