On Monday my friend and former coworker Jeff Hilimire and I released our new book, . The book shares 9 proven ways to create an undeniable culture. A great culture is the X-factor that both magnetizes and propels an organization. When you get it right, you create magic. When you get it wrong you create the Los Angeles Lakers.
The “Before the Book” podcast
One of the most enjoyable experiences in the process happened last week. Jeff and I sat down to record a podcast talking about our life and career experiences that have taught us the importance of culture.
I loved recording the podcast. But it was weird how the book & phone floated near Jeff’s head the whole time.
This fun 30-minute-ish podcast covers:
Engauge: (How we found our momentum after highly disruptive mergers)
Weness: How it fuels culture. (So follow your weness.)
My Family’s 5 Most Things: One of them surprised and delighted Jeff.
Our families: I find it interesting that Jeff and I both have 3 sisters and no brothers.
Sports: We were both college athletes. (I talk about my college track experience and my high school football team.)
Bad bosses: (They teach us so much. Like the importance of finding a new job)
I am thrilled to announce that my new book is available today! The book is titled The Culture Turnaround. It shares 9 Proven Ways to Create an Undeniable Organizational Culture.
I have always been a huge believer in the power of culture. It is the secret ingredient that magnetizes humans to each other. Culture is what helps make families, teams and businesses greater as a collective than they are as individuals. (Plus, you can’t make yogurt without it.)
I first experienced the transformational power of culture through team sports. In high school, I was part of a state championship track & field team. And my high school football team made it to the state semi-finals twice. #GoMarauders! In college, I was a member of the University of Wisconsin track and field team that won Big 10 Conference championships in both my junior and senior years. #OnWisconsin!
In business, culture is one of the most important and least understood ingredients of success. My co-author Jeff Hilimire and I worked together at Engauge after our previous advertising agencies merged in an acquisition.
Instead of letting territorial battles ruin the new organization, our leadership team purposefully created a new culture based on ‘weness’ and high performance. As a result, Engauge flourished and began a new business win streak like I had never seen before. (#streakingthequad) This ultimately led to Publicis acquiring the agency.
I went on to launch the advertising and ideas agency, The Weaponry, and Jeff launched another great agency called Dragon Army. We also both started writing books to share our learnings with the world. (Which is easier than buying the world a Coke.)
Today, Jeff and I share insights about what we helped created together at Engauge. The Culture Turnaround is a fictional story that shares how you can change the trajectory of an organization by focusing on its cultural foundation. The book offers 9 practical ways to improve your team culture or establish a great culture in a new team.
The book is available in paperback and on Kindle. The piece of wood is not included.
Where To Find It.
If your organization could use some help in the culture department, I highly encourage you to pick up a copy of the book at Ripples.media/shop or at an Amazon website near you. The book also makes a great gift, which is good to know if you have any major gift-giving occasions coming up in the next, say, 13 days. #hohoho
I also encourage you to check out Jeff Hilimire’s first 3 books in The Turnaround Leadership Series. The first book focuses on leading like an entrepreneur, the second on leading through a crisis, and the third on building a great team. Then, along came The Culture Turnaround.
Let’s Talk!
If you would like to learn more about how to implement a great culture within your organization, please let me know. I’d love to talk.
*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.
Friday night my family and I drove down to Chicago from Milwaukee. We had planned a fun holiday season weekend in the city. And when I say we planned it, I mean, my wife Dawn planned it. But I drove. And found parking.
The itinerary included restaurants and shopping. The central event was going to the The Nutcracker at the Lyric Opera House. Which is a funny name for an opera house, because I haven’t understood a single lyric of any opera I have ever seen.
Friday Night
After driving nearly 3 hours through snow and rain Friday evening we finally got to Chicago. We checked into our hotel and walked to our dinner reservation. Which was delicious. Then we walked back to our hotel. At 9pm, as the 5 of us relaxed in our hotel room we had to decide if we were done for the night.
It would have been easy to stay in our hotel room. After all, we had already had a long day of school, work, travel and walking. Plus, the room was comfy.
We debated our evening plan for several minutes. But we were on a family adventure in Chicago. So we decided we were heading back out into the city.
Adventure!
We had packed our ice skates for the trip, just in case the spirit moved us. And at 9pm on Friday night, it moved us. So I threw a duffel bag loaded with 5 pairs of skates over my shoulder and we urban hiked nearly a mile to the Millenium Park ice skating rink, which is right next to the Chicago Bean. (The magical fruit.)
Trying to show these sponges how to soak it all in.
We found a bench and sat down to swap our shoes for skates, Mr. Rogers-style. For the next hour, we skated and laughed and tried not to fall or get run over.
Christmas music played. The lights of the city skyscrapers rose high in the background. And there were Christmas lights twinkling everywhere. It was a magical night.
Me and Dawn, skating in a winter wonderland.
As I experienced the child-like joy of skating at night in the heart of one of the world’s greatest cities, 2 weeks before Christmas, there was a thought that kept running through my head:
I could have missed this. My family and I could have lounged on the beds in our hotel rooms. And watched TV. Or scrolled through our phones. Or simply gone to bed. And we would have missed this experience. An experience that didn’t cost a dime. It simply required us to get out and do it.
-Inner me (as told to Outer Me.)
That cone followed me around to warn everyone to stand clear.
Key Takeaway
Live while you can. Fill your days with experiences and adventures. Enjoy time with friends and family while you can. Because someday it will be too late. And you will wish you had.
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Welcome to the heart of the holiday season. While it is a time full of great gatherings and good cheer, it is also a time full of encounters with perfect strangers. Like Balki Bartokomous and Larry Appleton.
I want you to try an experiment. Over the next 24 hours note how many people you encounter that you don’t know. I warn you, it may freak you out. Most of us live anonymously in a sea of strangers. They are everywhere. Like minivans. Yet we have become immune to these strangers that surround us. It’s as if they disappear when we ignore them. Like reality TV stars.
I was reminded of my own anonymity a few years ago at my gym. After I scanned my membership card, the guy who routinely works at the reception desk said, “Have a good day, man”.
A normal person would have just done what they were told and had a nice day. But instead, I asked the guy working the counter at Elite Sports Club, “What’s your name?’ He replied, ‘Andrew’. I said, ‘My name is Adam’ (that’s my go-to). We shook hands. From then on, every time I saw Andrew we greeted each other by name. We had real conversations, instead of an awkward, “Hey-Man” relationship.
Insiders vs Outsiders
Everyone we encounter in business, at holiday gatherings and at the grocery store is either an Insider or an Outsider. The difference is whether or not we know each other by name. That sense of familiarity and friendship that can only develop once you know a person’s name makes an enormous difference on this planet, where we are so often surrounded by John and Jane Does (that was supposed to be Doe-plural. But it looks like does, doesn’t it?).
I think about names at work. At the advertising agency, The Weaponry, we encounter people when we visit our clients that we don’t have to know by name. The receptionists. The people who sit next to the conference rooms where we make too much noise. The IT person who inevitably saves every presentation. But I want to meet them too. So I make a habit of introducing myself, by name. Suddenly we are not just people who see each other regularly. We become people who know each other, by name.
Key Takeaway
Convert more of those people you see or say hello to regularly into people you really know by name. It’s easy. Introduce yourself, by name and ask for their name in return. Write the names down. Remember them by starting a list with the names of people you meet and a description of who they are on your phone or in a notebook. Refer back to the list as necessary. The rewards are profound. Just ask Andrew from Elite. Or Norm from Cheers.
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During the 25 days leading up to Christmas, it’s a tradition to count the days with an advent calendar. Each day this calendar is opened to reveal a daily gift. There are a variety of themed calendars. Some offer a good bible verse, a small toy, a chocolate, a saying, or an ornament. (I’m holding out for the mini-oven calendar, where you open a tiny oven door to remove freshly baked muffin tops every morning.) But regardless of the theme, these calendars provide a daily gift to look forward to each day as we get closer to Christmas. Kinda like the Lifetime Network.
For the self-improver, life is like an advent calendar. Every day there is a new gift to be discovered. A new quote. A new idea. A new relationship. A new source of inspiration. A new motivation. A new goal. A new lesson. (And in New Hampshire there is a new Sununu.)
When I wrote my book What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? I collected 80 of the best life lessons I have learned and shared them with the world. Many of the people who read the book tell me they use it like an advent calendar. They read one of the 2-4 page lessons every day. Then they apply the new idea, knowledge, or skill to improve their life. As the author, this is extremely rewarding feedback. As the author, it is extremely rewarding to hear that other people get as much out of the lessons I share as I did.
Key Takeaway #1
Commit to making your life a living, breathing advent calendar. Look for your daily gift that makes you better. Then add that new lesson, story, saying, person or idea to your personal treasure chest by writing it down in a journal. When you do you will quickly transform that once-empty journal into the most valuable book in your library. Remember, when you condition yourself to find a daily treasure the treasure will surely appear.
Follow Up…
Within a minute of writing this post, I got a text from my friend Molly Fay, host of The Morning Blend on TMJ4 (NBC) in Milwaukee. She wrote that they had a cancelation for the next day’s show, and wondered if I could fill in. I responded with an enthusiastic Let’s do this! Then she asked if I had a topic in mind related to the upcoming holidays.
Me, Molly, Tiffany, my book, a yellow couch, and two Yeti cups. No partridge. No pear tree.
Key Takeaway #2
Be the kind of person others can turn to when they need help. Because at the end of our days the only thing that really matters is the impact we have on each other.
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Success always sounds easier than it really is. You set a goal. You work hard. And you accomplish it, right? It’s all so so logical, and linear.
But the logic overlooks the most overlooked stage of success. The pre-boil. You remember. It’s the lesson we learned in science class. And it’s a lesson we’re reminded of every time we watch a pot. Because that mofo never boils.
When you boil water there are 5 stages to the process:
You fill a pot with water.
You place the pot on the stove.
You turn on the burner
The burner heats the water.
The water boils.
4 out of the 5 stages of the process last only a matter of seconds. Like an Instagram story. But one of the stages takes much longer.
Stage 4: The Pre-Boil.
The Pre-Boil is the part of the process when you put in the necessary work to get the result. But you are not yet getting the result you are after.
You have to go through the pre-boil phase:
When you exercise.
When you want to lose weight.
When you want to establish a successful career.
When you want to be an influencer.
When you start your own business.
When you are a student.
When you write a book.
When you want to make a tasty lobster dinner.
And when you want to build Rome. (Because everyone knows that is not a one-day job.)
The Most Common Cause Of Failure
Most attempts fail because they don’t survive the pre-boil. Because during this stage the effort you put in is far greater than the results you get out.
However, during the pre-boil, your effort, work, dedication, and sacrifice are accumulating. Just like the heat that is accumulating in that pot of water on the stove.
The pre-boil is the price of entry. It is the initiation to the club. It is the test to see if you really want what you think you want. If you really want that dream to come true you must keep marching through the pre-boil. It is the only way to get to your goal.
Key Takeaway
All great accomplishments require sustained effort. The energy you exert is added to your account. But you won’t see the results right away. Know that. Accept that. And keep going. Success is a test. The universe holds back the reward to sweeten it. Which makes it worth both the work and the wait.
*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.
Unlike L.L. Cool J, I love a good comeback story. The kind of story where you thought all was lost. That defeat was imminent. And the small amount of time left was not enough to support the amount of work left to do. We have great examples of these types of comebacks. And they are amongst the most inspiring human stories. Cue Eye of The Tiger.
But good comeback stories are not just written by big-time sports teams. Nor are they just for famous actors and rockstars who once got too deep into drugs or ice cream to remain hot and bookable.
Write Your Own Comeback Story Today
In fact, you can write your own comeback story any day. We all have days when it feels like we don’t get anything accomplished. We get sidetracked at work and don’t feel productive. We don’t get our exercise in. We don’t get much on our to-do list to-done.
But you can always do something valuable late in the day, or evening, or night to save the day. Like Mighty Mouse.
I am frequently surprised by how much I can accomplish in a late-day flurry of activity when I thought a whole day of productivity had been lost. I often sneak in a trip to the gym at 9pm, or I exercise at home as late as 11pm because I still can. I regularly read, write or work late in the evening. This not only helps me keep my commitment to myself, it also helps keep my momentum rollin’. Like Limp Bizkit.
Today is December 1st. This is the beginning of the last month of the year. And if you haven’t been highly productive in 2022 it’s not too late. You still have a full month to work on your goals. You have 31 days to create a new great habit. You have the same time to break a bad habit. You have 4.5 weeks to invest in a bucket list item. You still have time to start a business. To write a book. To plan and book that epic vacation. To start exercising. To go to church. To read a good book. To reconnect with someone you’ve lost. Or to find yourself. So let’s get going.
Key Takeaway
At the end of an unproductive day, week, month or year, let the scarcity of time create a sense of urgency to act. It is not too late. Make great use of your remaining time. The older you get the more you recognize the true value of time. Let those remaining sands in the hourglass inspire your comeback story. Tomorrow you will be thankful you did.
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Adam Albrecht Blog 