Randy Pennington says the difference between “Results Rules” companies and those who play to more ordinary standards, is that they do one thing better than anybody else: they take action towards the goals they are trying to achieve. The conventional wisdom is that you change the culture to improve your performance. Pennington thinks we have that backward. He says that “you change the performance to change the culture”. Here are some ways we can do just that.
Tell yourself the truth and value candor
When people feel comfortable around one another, they are more likely to speak their minds. So encourage your people to talk to you, to talk to each other, and to get comfortable with each other as human beings.
When you go to a place like Walmart and listen to one of their all-hands meetings, you’ll be amazed at what will at first looks like brutal honesty and candor. But according to Coleman Peterson, the retired executive Vice President of the People Division at Walmart, what is taking place is simply people being familiar with each other. familiarity makes it easier to be open about everything and will break down a lot of the barriers between people.
Pursue the best over the easiest
There are two reasons why you should pursue being the best over the easiest. First, it becomes easier to perform when you have a standard to evaluate against. “Will this action further us in the quest to become the best or not? If so, let’s do it. If not, forget it.” Second, achieving results makes everyone happier and that usually leads to better performance. Customers also want to associate with the best and that's why Results Rules organization decides to be the best.
Leverage the power of partnerships
There is a lack of loyalty among customers and employees because companies don’t give them any reasons to be loyal. Therefore, how do you build a partnership that has loyalty at its core? There's one thing you can do that will consistently generate more results than anything else. Making a conscious decision to see more in others than in than they see in themselves, communicating that to them, and then nurturing it until it becomes a self-sustaining reality.
Learn, grow and improve every day
The last thing that Results from Rules organizations do that the rest of us don’t do is to learn, grow and improve every day. One type of learning that these organizations partake in is the learning you are doing right now—taking on new ideas and implementing them into your business.
Another type of learning is from your experience, which is an opportunity you have inside your organization every single day. Which company do you think will do better in the long run: the one that fixes the same problem 100 times, or the one that fixes 100 different problems once. The point is that if you’re not constantly improving, and taking the lessons that life is throwing at you anyways, you’re quickly going to become another mistake for results rule companies learn from.
Learn from these core rules and you’ll be well on your way to creating a results rule company as well as changing your performance and changing the culture as a result.