Lead Your Tribe, Love Your Work

An Entrepreneur's Guide to Creating a Culture that Matters

Piyush Patel

• Publisher: Dream Big Imprint, LLC
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780998646503
• eBook ISBN: 9780998646534
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Workplace Culture
• Index: Business

AXIOM AWARD WINNER IN LEADERSHIP
In Lead Your Tribe, Love Your Work, Piyush Patel offers an insider’s perspective on how to unify your team around a common purpose by uncovering your core values and transforming your culture.  With over 20 years of entrepreneurial experience, Piyush has discovered that—while leaders can provide opportunities—real culture comes from the heart. Using real-life examples and practical takeaways, Lead Your Tribe, Love Your Work is the ultimate guide to creating a tribe to lead and a workplace you love. Piyush challenges readers to rethink their current paths, unveiling: • The business-owner wake-up call: How to tell when your company culture is failing and what to do to fix it
• The key to employee retention is BAM—Belonging, Affirmation, and Meaning
• Secrets to successful onboarding: How to make new employees feel like they already belong
• Constructive “uncomfortable” conversations: Tips for getting positive results from conflict
• Four questions to ask your employees to get a pulse on your company’s culture
• When successful businesses happen to poor leaders: Identify negative initiatives and reshape your company before it’s too late
• How to spot the difference between ‘real’ and ‘faux’ culture: Why a company with perks can still be toxic As a business owner or leader, Lead Your Tribe, Love Your Work will challenge you to take control of your culture and create a thriving company that’s built for longevity. 

AFFIRMATION

4

Belonging to a tribe is one thing. Loving it is something else.

The first few times I gave someone a raise, this is how it went: Lisa and I would bring them into the conference room, sit them down, and say, “Stan, what a great job you’ve done over the past year. For all your awesome work, we’re giving you a ten percent raise.”

Whatever their salary, ten percent is a lot of money. I was elated to be able to give it to them. Not a one-time bonus. Not an appreciation gift. Not a token raise just to keep up with inflation. A real, honest-to-goodness, this-is-the lowest-salary-you’ll-evermake-here, permanent jump in their income.

I don’t know what I expected from them. I know what I’d have done back in my teaching days if the president of the college had called me in and given me a ten percent raise. I’d have flipped over backward if they’d just given me a two percent raise!

What did our people do?

“Oh, wow. Thank you. Um, wow. That’s great.”

Silence accompanied by an awkward look on their face.

Then, “Did you need me for anything else?”

Disappointed, I’d say, “No, that’s all. Just wanted to let you know about your new raise.”

They’d thank me again and then go back to their desk.

I’d look at Lisa and say, “Well, that sucked.”

I guess I wanted them to jump on the table and dance for joy. I thought they’d call their significant other and scream, “Honey, we got more money!”

Nope.

Just a somewhat embarrassed thank-you and a “Can I get back to work now?” I didn’t feel like they understood the true significance of what it took to give them that raise. In a small business, every penny counts. More than that, I wanted this to mean something for them.

I came up with “raise dinners.” Instead of giving a raise every year, I waited a year-and-a-half or even two years to give someone a raise. While $5,000 is a nice raise, getting $10,000 or $15,000 carries a much bigger punch. Instead of having them come into the conference room, Lisa and I would take them and their significant other out to a very nice dinner.

Our favorite place to hold these dinners was Mahogany Prime Steakhouse, an elegant restaurant with a wonderful ambiance: low lighting, natural wood and stone—just what you’d think of when you go out to a “nice place.” We’d order steak dinners and talk about all the projects that were going on. But instead of talking to the employee, I’d talk to their partner.

I’d start with sharing important milestones their significant other had reached: “I really appreciated how James helped a key customer, who was a concept artist on Star Wars, solve a problem they were facing in production.

“Your husband helped us produce over thirty courses this year and covered topics which we had only dreamed of before he joined the company. Because of him, we will reach a huge milestone this year.

“Also, I just wanted to thank you for sharing James with us. I know you have three kids and I’m sure it’s hard for you to be the main caregiver while he is at work having fun…but we really couldn’t do this without him.”

Then over dessert, I’d drop the news to our employee: “Lisa and I are so very thankful for all that you do and continue to do for us. We would like to give you a $15,000 raise. We understand that money isn’t everything, but we want to let you know you mean a lot to us, and that we value you and what you bring to the company.”

Boom.

After the shock, the tears, and/or the laughter, their partner would turn to my employee and say, “In the morning, I don’t want to hear you hitting snooze—you go get your ass to work!”

What did having dinners accomplish? Financially, I was putting off a raise for an additional year, so nothing on that front. The cost of dinner was a negligible expense. But the value to the employee of having the owner brag on them to their significant other for a couple of hours, and then to let them be the hero bringing home another fifteen grand a year? Priceless.

What does this have to do with loving our tribe?

We affirmed the value of our employee in the eyes of their loved ones. We showered them with honest praise, and then put our money where our mouth was by giving them a shocking raise. We made them feel valued. We made them feel loved.

OUR MEETING RITUALS

Every month like clockwork, Digital-Tutors had our one and only recurring staff meeting.

Everyone left their phones behind and picked up pen and paper. We’d all gather around conference tables in a room where, for the next two hours or so, we’d reflect on what happened in the past month and look at what lay ahead in the next month. The core of the agenda was always the same:

• Values stories: 60 minutes
• Updates from each team: 30 minutes
• Important dates and financials: 15 minutes
• Your big takeaway from the meeting: 15 minutes

As you can see, the very first thing we did was go around the room for an hour and let each person share a story of witnessing another employee who exemplified one of our five values.

We affirmed the value of our employee in the eyes of their loved ones.

Let’s stop for a second to consider the direct cost of that. If we had thirty-two people in that room and the average salary was $80,000, then that meeting would cost the company about $29,500 per year. That’s just salary. That doesn’t count the opportunity cost of engaging with customers, working with potential enterprise clients, creating marketing material, or anything else. Factor that in and you’re talking about an additional several thousand dollars lost every month. And a good portion of that time would be sharing value stories. Was it worth it?

Absolutely.

The recipe for a great value story contained three key ingredients. First, it tied to a specific value. Therefore, before sharing a story, each person would mention the value their story related to.

For example, Andrew kicked off one meeting with this: “My story is about Linda and involves the value that fun creates loyalty. Last week, she invited a group of us to come over to her house to play board games. It was a great opportunity to get to know her and the others a lot better outside of the office.”

The second ingredient for our value stories was to make sure it was for a specific person. When you have great people working for you, it can be tempting to share stories about more than one of them. For example, sharing how an entire team did something spectacular, but we always discouraged that. We wanted to shine the spotlight on a specific person who embodied our values.

Another time, Christian stood up. “My story is for Aaron and embracing positive change. For those of you who don’t know, Aaron took on a new responsibility this month as he started creating some marketing videos. Last week, he streamlined the process for these videos and he also has volunteered to take on some of the other marketing videos as well.”

Christian could have congratulated the entire marketing team for a job well done on the new videos. By talking about a specific person, he let Aaron know he noticed the hard work that he put into the new videos.

The final ingredient for a great value story is tying it to a specific event. It’s not a general blanket statement. For example, Kevin might say, “My story is for Cory. The value is service with a passion, although I guess it could also fit into doing more with less. Cory’s been working on a new feature for the site. Just before his deadline, I think it was a Tuesday, he found a couple of major bugs. Instead of releasing it first and fixing the bugs later, he was up here until ten o’clock that night ‘squashing’ bugs. He hit his deadline, and, in the weeks that followed, no customers have reported any issues!”

I’m sure Cory worked hard on the new feature for days or even weeks before his deadline, but instead of a story about the entire project’s success, Kevin pinpointed a specific event. When Cory made the conscious decision not to release a buggy feature and then do what it took to fix the issues, he exhibited service with a passion—and Kevin’s story affirmed that behavior.

As the company grew, so did the number of people sharing value stories. The monetary cost to the company would grow right along with it. But I knew it was worth it.

Of course, new hires usually wouldn’t get it right away. When it came their turn, they’d often resort to giving someone a shout out: “I really liked how Jackson’s latest course turned out. Great job, Jackson!”

As true as it may have been, that’s not a great example of living Digital-Tutors’ values. When this happened, I’d wait until after the meeting and pull the new hire aside, offering them some coaching on the three ingredients of a great value story for next month’s meeting.

Practice makes perfect. So I’d ask their team leader to share value stories each morning. This repetition helped each person learn how to look for the values faster by learning from the right examples. It also offered new hires a chance to hear more experienced team members lead by example as they shared stories. As a bonus, it also helped the team grow closer to their new team member.

Without fail, by the next monthly meeting the new hire would offer a narrative with the key ingredients. It was a great way for our employees to affirm each other, it gave me a great opportunity to see how team members were doing, and it provided a chance to coach individuals on our values.

When I’d talk about this practice with my entrepreneurial friends in the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), I’d hear, “What?! You guys shut down for almost half a day? Every month?! And this isn’t, like, a sales meeting? Just Kumbaya shit? Uh-uh. That’s too much payroll sitting there doing nothing.”

Here’s what I asked them: what were they losing by not taking time every...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• My Journey (And Probably Yours)
• B.A.M.!
• Belonging
• Affirmation
• Meaning
• Play By Your Own Rules
• Culture Is All You’ve Got
• Living Your Values Now
• Hiring
• Onboarding
• Firing
• Tribal Leadership
• Having “Those” Conversations
• Teamwork By Design
• Leaders Go Last
• When You’re a Shitty Leader
• Go Forth And Lead a Tribe
• About the Author
• Back Cover