Experiencing culture shock?

Do you ever feel like the cultural climate is hindering your organization’s ability to be more successful?

Maybe it’s time to take a long hard look at the underlying factors driving the current cultural climate and take the measures necessary to build a better one.

Imagine working with a team of high performance, fully autonomous and accountable, world-class people all working together to achieve greater success, happiness, and freedom. No more micromanaging, missing deadlines, and dealing with all the headaches and wasted resources from high turnover.

The fact of the matter is, that this is a very tangible reality once you understand the catalyst that will create the transformation. As with everything in leadership it all starts at the top and takes consistent persistent effort.

Yet most organizations struggle to create these types of results because of an underlying culture of mediocrity and doing the bare minimum plagues their workforce and holds them back.

I’d like to suggest that a shift to a culture with the foundation of meritocracy can be one of the most powerful moves you can make to reboot the culture and encourage employees in the transformation.

The reason meritocracy is so powerful comes from the philosophy discussed in the book, Top Grading, which describes how A players will only hire and work with other A players. While B & C players will never hire A players for fear of being outshined and/or losing their jobs to the A players.

The challenge here is that if you have a team of mixed A, B, and C players, the A players will never perform at their peak because they will be distracted, restricted, and demotivated from the culture bred by the mix of lower caliber players. This significantly impacts motivation and morale throughout the organization and culture.

In order to make a shift in this type of mixed culture, one must reboot the cultural foundation that drives the morale of the organization. And admittedly, this is no small task and can be a significant challenge to create such a radical change. But you can do it when you use the right approach and lead by example from the front.

Below is a powerful explanation of meritocracy from a book titled, Leadership Secrets Of The Rogue Warrior, written by a legendary former Navy seal, Richard Marcinko. Mr. Marcinko was the founder and creator of the infamous Navy Seal Team 6, so he certainly knows a thing or two about leadership and building a champion culture. In it, he describes a meritocracy driven culture in regard to a special operations military unit. However, it is directly applicable to any team setting, especially businesses, and can help provide the foundational mindset to create a champion culture.

In fact, I instill this approach of meritocracy to foster a champion culture in every company I get involved in, and it always drives greater results, reduces turnover, and in turn elevates bottom-line profitability.

And if you think a meritocracy driven culture could be the game-changer your organization needs, you can click here to learn more about the exact process you can use to successfully instill this change.

Enjoy the quick read below and consider how you as a leader can leverage this philosophy to create better results.

Meritocracy Rogue Warrior Style

The way I see it, the company doesn’t owe its managers new Mercedes, and it doesn’t owe its workers new pick-ups. Nobody owes anybody anything.

Your company owes you something only when you perform. You’ve got to earn your worth through your actions. Until you do that, you’re nothing — you’re just another child whining for attention. When my Navy subordinates acted like that, I gave them a little “maturity counseling” — with the toe of my boot.

These days, in my business affairs, I still don’t care if you were born a king or a peasant: My kingdom is still a meritocracy and your actions are the only things that count in my eyes.

How will you feel when I make you prove your worth to me? At first, you’ll probably be pissed off. You won’t like having to prove yourself. It’s hard. But when you do, you’re going to feel better than you have in a long time. You’re going to experience a feeling of self-worth that you may not have felt for years. And that feeling is going to empower you beyond your wildest dreams. You’re going to feel like somebody who’s ready to kick ass and take names. You’ll feel sorry for the punk who tries to stand between you and your goals.

And I’ll tell you something else in you that will change; your outlook toward others. You’ll stop judging them by what they are, and start judging them by what they do. And that will change them.

When this happens, you’ll take another step closer to being a true leader of real warriors.

I’d made my point: I don’t care who you are — I don’t care if you’re King Farouk’s favorite grandson — if you work for me, I’ll judge you by what you do, and how well you do it. I don’t care who you are, or who you know.

-Richard ”Demo Dick” Marcinko, Founder of Navy Seal Team Six

So there you have it, the explanation of a meritocracy driven culture from the direct experience of a true warrior and hero.

Now comes the part of the equation where many fall short, implementing the knowledge gained.

So my question for you is, are you in the group of the knowledge seekers who love to learn but are slow to act or the very rare breed of those who learn, execute, fail, innovate, and repeat?

If you are in that latter group of doers and find benefit in having a team and like-minded community at your disposal to accelerate success, go here and apply for my private coaching!