KindCulture Missteps That Are Killing Your Sales

KindCulture delivers work experiences that demonstrate empathy, respect, honesty, and inclusion, while empowering the entire organization to be creative, innovative and solve problems in a way that is considerate and compassionate to all the communities they serve. Is your business struggling to retain top talent or meet business goals? These five culture killers might be the problem:

1.      Ambiguous Corporate Values

How do your corporate values align to the expectations you have for your people? When talent decides where to work, compensation plays only part of that decision. The best way to attract and, more importantly, keep the right talent is to ensure your organization lives its core values AND that they are emphasized in how your teams work each day.

2.     No Culture Performance Metrics

What do culture metrics have to do with profits? Everything! Forbes.com reports that companies with strong cultures see a 4x increase in revenue growth. If you are not tracking metrics related to your culture, you won’t know where you might have issues until it is too late. People are forgiving when they know you are actively working to fix problems. When they don’t see active work around improving their work environment, you will see a significant drop in productivity as well as a lack of loyalty and engagement. When you have low employee engagement you will see poor customer engagement and a direct negative impact to your sales.

3.     Lack of Cognitive Diversity

Diversity is a big - and very important - buzzword! In addition to race and gender, diversity of thought is also crucial. Fill your teams with different voices and ideas. The most successful organizations ensure an environment that is psychologically safe and actively encourages open communication. Throw out the idea of "difficult conversations" and recognize, that in a safe environment, you are simply having conversations. When teams know they can be open and honest, your company will see more engagement, better productivity, and identify and solve challenges in the most creative, innovative ways.

4.     A Fear-Based Competition Culture

Most competition stems from fear of loss. In work culture, loss of job, promotion, or money can motivate people, but not always in the best ways. Competition might motivate people to deliver more, but at what cost? Unintended consequences of a competition-based culture are the creation of silos, poor problem identification and resolution, and unethical behaviors- all of which WILL impact your business operations and customer satisfaction in the most unfavorable way. However, competition doesn't have to be bad, instead use it to encourage creativity and you will see a shift in how your teams interact and deliver top tier performance.

5.     Goal Setting Without the Team

Leaders should be setting the vision and direction of the business. Allowing the teams to participate in how you get there will yield big benefits. Engaging the team in setting expectations gives them ownership and takes goals from a "higher-ups" decision to a team decision that is owned by all. Now, sales goals are no longer happening TO them, but WITH them.

Wondering how KindCulture can improve your sales? Let's connect today.