Building a Culture of Excellence and Ethical Values in Your Business

Business owners are often faced with tough decisions.

Creating a business playbook means establishing consistently high standards that help set your company up for success on a day-to-day basis and handing down a company culture of ethical, sustainable values.

Jeff Bezos’ 2017 letter to shareholders drives home the importance and benefits of setting high standards in your business.

Benefits of high standards:

1. Build better products and services for customers

2. People are drawn to high standards – they help with recruiting and retention

3. A culture of high standards is protective of all the “invisible” but crucial work that goes on in every company.

How do you feel about the standards in your company? Are they helping with recruiting and retention?

This episode is part 2 in the “Why you need a business playbook?” series. For part 1, click here -> Unburdening Yourself as the CEO.

Ready to learn more about creating a business playbook for your company? Click the button below. 👇🏽

Podcast Transcript

0:01 Kiva Slade

Hello and welcome to collab with Kiva. I'm your host Kiva, Slade. From the marbled halls of the US Congress to my racing themed office chair. I've learned that there is no perfect path to the life of your dreams. My journey over the past 20 years has included being a legislative director for a member of Congress, policy director for a nonprofit, stay at home mom, homeschooling mom, jewelry business owner, and now the owner of a service based business. Whether your journey has been a straight line, or full of zigs and zags. Join me and my guest as we share insights, hope and lessons learned from our female entrepreneurship journeys. Made the collaborative sharing of our stories be the tide that lifts your boat. Let's dive in. Hello, and welcome back to this episode of collab with Kiva. I'm Kiva Slade, your host, and we are on the second reason of why you need a playbook in your business. Last week, we focused on the importance of unburdening yourself as a CEO. And we talked about the fact that it for many of us, as the CEOs, a lot of what takes place in our business is in our head. And we need to get it out of our head, not only to clear up space up there, but also to get that weight off of our shoulders. So today, we're going to focus on the second reason. It is around establishing consistently high standards. And you might wonder, why, why do we need to do this? When you have established consistent play high standards, okay? It allows your business to grow as you hire people, and in many cases, multiple people for the same roles. That's where this really comes in clutch. Because we don't often realize that, but I want you to picture with me, you've worked at, or you are the owner of a company in which more than one person was doing a roll. They don't do it the same way. What happens with a situation like that. It's not to say that one way is better than the other. Sometimes there is. Sometimes though, maybe it's a hybrid of some good pieces from a way of doing it in some good pieces from a way b of doing it. So bottom line, though, is when you have two people doing the same job, you're going to notice differences in performance. It just is what's going to happen. They're bringing different things to that position. And when there is no high standard that is set. You wind up with different ways of the same task being completed. So streamlining, documenting, like what is the best way, ie the highest standard is a way to resolve that issue. And it's important. For example, today, my husband went to the store, he went to purchase something that we had purchased at another store in another state. And he liked it. So he said, Hey, I'm gonna go to the store and go pick it up. They didn't have the same exact model that he was looking for. But it was okay, it was the same brand. And so it was on the shelf for one price while it was on the shelf associated with one price. And there were two other prices there. So he pretty much said, Okay, it's going to be between this low number and this high number. But when he went to go ring it up, it was actually higher than the highest number listed anywhere in that vicinity of where the product project product came from. In So, manager number one. Hey, that's the price. You want it or you want me to return it. Manager number two. Oh, that's interesting. You're right those numbers don't match up,

5:01

how about we go for the price in the middle, and we'll give you a gift card for the difference. Manager number one, had that same authority had that same latitude to do the exact same thing that manager to did. However, it didn't happen that way. So what could have been a frustrated customer experience, wound up being a slightly frustrated until the second manager came on the scene to a pleasant class customer experience. And that's what high standards help create excellent customer experiences. And that's what you want for your clients to have a great experience with you, especially for those of us who are service based providers. Let's go back in time to 2017. Jeff Bezos of Amazon puts out a letter to his shareholders. And one of the key components he speaks about is the benefits of high standards. And so this is what he says building a culture of high standards, it's well worth the effort. There are many benefits naturally, and most obviously, you're going to build better products and services for customers. This would be reason enough, perhaps a little less obvious. People are drawn to high standards, they help with recruiting and retention. More subtle, a culture of high standards is protective of all the invisible but crucial work that goes on in every company. I'm talking about the work that no one sees that work that gets done when no one is watching. In a high standards culture, doing that work well is its own reward. It's part of what it means to be a professional. And finally, high standards are fun. Once you've tasted high standards, there's no going back. So the four elements of high standards as we see it, they are teachable. They are domain specific, you must recognize them. And you must explicitly coach realistic scope. For us these work at all levels of detail. Everything from writing memos, to whole new clean sheet business initiatives. Insist on the highest standards, leaders have relentlessly high standards, many people may think these standards are unreasonably high. So when we break down what Jeff Bezos was saying, we cut across multiple reasons of why you need a playbook. People are drawn to high standards. Not only are your customers, your clients drawn to your high standards, it will attract people to be on your team. Yes, people want to work on a team that has high standards. We're seeing so much with the great resignation. And the things that people are sharing as to why we're seeing kind of battle royale and recruiting circles. But when it comes to recruiting and retention, let's face it, when your friend tells you, oh my goodness, this is the most amazing place. They have this, this, that and this, you're more intrigued and ready to say hey, what kind of openings are there, you're attracted to those high standards. And so as an owner, those high standards that you've set, not only give your team the culture of high standards, but it also allows your team to recruit others who can and will appreciate those high standards. Okay, and we're going to talk about the importance of recruiting and retention. In our next episode about enhancing the employee experience. We're seeing a lot of that it's important that that business playbook can address those needs of those on your team, that they feel valued. They feel honored and they are productive.

10:03

But Jeff also cuts into that invisible but crucial work. Let's face it, many businesses, there are certain procedures that are done that are the linchpin of that business. There needs to be high standards around those. They're not always the things that people see. They're the things that make the engine go. And we need the engine to go. So when you're creating a high standards culture, you set the bar for people to know how they need to show up, you eliminate the frustration of people not showing up people not performing an excellence, people not doing fill in the blank. Typically, that occurs when there is not a high standards culture that exist. So I want you to think about what can you do to prove the standards that exist in your business? How can you ensure that you are building a culture that has high standards? And then to reaping the benefits of those high standards?

11:44

One way to do that is through your business playbook. That one place where your company, your policies, your procedures, your people can all come to find out what is the policy for X, Y or Z? What is that procedure? Who do I need to talk to you about that? So again, I want you to make sure that you are establishing consistently high standards, consistently being one of those words that if we were in person, we'd underline highlight, double underline, so that we remind ourselves that it needs to be consistent. A high standard one day followed by many days of no high standards is not a high standard. So as again, you're thinking through this, I want you to die just dialogue with your team. Where do we have high standards were Can we do a better job of setting those high standards so that we all can reap the benefits of high standards, consistent, high standards. So thanks again for tuning in. Remember, if you missed last week's episode, we talked about unburdening yourself as the CEO of your business, make sure to check it out. And if you have any questions, we are interested in building out your business playbook or you just want to talk more and say, I don't know if I'm ready for a playbook. Maybe I'm ready for a game plan to get me to that playbook. The Super Bowl is coming, guys, you're gonna get all the sports analogies. So definitely reach out to me, check me out on my website, a 516 collaborative.com. And make sure you send me a message. Until next time, keep those standards consistently high. Talk soon. Bye. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of collab with Kiva. You know my heart, and it wants you to know that you are uniquely made and that your business path is unique to you. I hope that now you have some clear takeaways from this episode that have left you inspired and motivated to keep pressing forward on your unique path. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss out on any future episodes. And of course, your reviews on Apple are greatly appreciated. If you are a small business owner, and you are ready to build out your business playbook, and you're ready to document and delegate what takes place in your business so it can grow beyond you. Make sure you visit me on my website, the 516 collaborative.com and let's schedule a time to talk. I'll see everyone next time. Bye

Meet Kiva Slade - the Founder and CEO of The 516 Collaborative. With a unique background in high-power politics on Capitol Hill and sixteen years as a homeschooling mama, Kiva found her calling in the online business world as a trusted guide for entrepreneurs looking to build the business of their dreams.

Kiva's work began behind the scenes, orchestrating the back end of businesses and managing teams. But her inner data diva couldn't help but notice that small businesses needed help harnessing the power of data for growth. So she and her team set out to uncover and tidy up the data required to enable clients to grow their businesses confidently and easily.