It is said that if you stand for nothing, you fall for everything. We’ve been talking a lot the last few months about culture. As I cohost the monthly NJBIA Business Growth Roundtable (link to next one), the concept of culture comes up again and again – this month we will talk about a culture where everyone “sells.” I wrote not long ago about the Heartbreak of a Great Culture. Your culture is built on your values. That is what you stand for.  So I ask…

• What are YOUR values?
• How do they show up at work?
• How do they inform your decisions – personally and professionally?
• Do your personal values align with your business values?

I often say that much of my success was somewhat unintentional until it became very strategic. When I opened C3Workplace it was called Above & Beyond – I wanted to exceed client expectations and treat people like I wanted to be treated. Simple yet timeless. As we figured out how that played out in the workplace, it morphed into the 3 C’s of C3Workplace:

Connect – all of us are meant to live, worship and work in community. COVID kicked that in the a$$ for a minute, but we found a way to connect despite quarantines. We gained a new appreciation for connection. Networking changed, but we still connected. Biz Dev changed, but we still found a way to connect (and drive referrals). We formed PODs so our children had children to play with. We attended virtual church because faith (my number one personal value) is at the core of who we are – we all need to believe in something bigger than us. I created a virtual prayer group that still meets every Monday (feel free to ask me more). Connecting is at the foundation of all we do and who we are at C3Workplace.

Collaborate – I believe a rising tide lifts all boats, and collaboration is how you accelerate the “rise.” Frankly, in business, it’s how you drive referrals, provide massive value, create thought leadership, and expand your audience. It is how you innovate, disrupt and stay relevant as decades go by, and change just happens faster and faster. It IS working smarter, not harder personified.  It is at the core of who we are and what we do at C3Workplace.

Community – By living our values out loud, we have built a community of people who believe what we believe (check out Simon Sinek TED talk). That community has grown on the connections and the collaboration that has helped everyone (I call that a win-win-win). You simply cannot help someone else without helping yourself in the process. We are Go-Givers – it’s who we hang out with, it’s the table we’ve built, it’s the way we change the world…one interaction at a time.

All of this has built a culture (apparently the 4^th C) at C3Workplace that truly embraces creativity, inclusion, and innovation (and associated risk-taking). It is inherently magnetic, self-scaling, stable, and…FUN (my 3^rd personal value). I couldn’t agree with Peter Drucker more – Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast! Our culture has helped us to build a team that is second to none in the middle of the “Great Resignation” and “Quiet Quitting. Our culture has helped us to morph our service offering to include tactical solutions that deliver massive value facilitating growth around your operations, your business development, and your finances.

This culture has allowed me to model work-life balance – a core value for me personally and something I help my clients and staff to do as well. From day one, I knew I wanted to create a business that fueled my life. I knew I wanted to be a mom first. Now that my children are grown and flown (mostly), this culture now allows me to raise up leaders, build a self-scaling company and work from anywhere.

Now, I get to live a life of impact (my 2nd personal value).

So … it turns out our 3 step process for building culture is: Connect, Collaborate, Community – what’s yours??