A summary of things you should know about The Culture Engine according to Chris Edmonds:

Introduction

In this episode Chris Edmonds shares his book, The Culture Engine, where he reveals a system for driving results, inspiring your employees, and transforming your workplace.

In his book Edmonds teaches you practical step-by-step lessons on how to define your company culture, delineate the behaviors that promote high performance, and create an employee policy that guides behavior towards an inspiring workplace. The goal of the book is to help you create the best workplace possible while molding your employees into productive rockstars.

This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who run an organization with 2 or more employees and are on a mission to help them become high performing leaders.

The Book’s Unique Quality (3:10)

The reality is that organizations are still not very nice places to operate in or fun places to work in. I am trying to craft a step by step practical framework that anybody can do. Now it takes a while but the biggest differentiator is I tell you how.

The Best Way To Engage (5:08)

My recommendation is to read all the way through to the end.

The Reader’s Takeaway (18:00)

The piece that’s very fun about this is that by getting people clearer about values and having them hold values up as important as performance is the absolute switch. If I can get that switch in leader’s heads, heart and hands they will be able to make the move and inspire others.

A Deep Dive Into The Book (6:25)

The title of chapter one is What Is An Organizational Constitution and Why Do You Need One? An organizational constitution allows you to craft and formalize your team’s reason for being its purpose. It’s not about making money, although that is important, but it’s about who you are serving and why they should be attracted to the product services that your team provides. The second piece of organizational constitution is about values and the values piece is the biggest shift and more important foundation. This chapter is about making values and how we should agree to treat others within our organization as well as customers and potential customers. The third piece is about strategies. From a standpoint on what the market is looking for and what your customers need your strategies need to be crystal clear and very well understood. The last element of an organization constitution is goals.

Chapter two in the book allows the reader to do some reflecting. This chapter gives you as the reader a chance to formalize your personal purpose, formalize your values and behaviors, and formalize your philosophy of leadership.

Chapter three begins with the first of the four elements of an organizational constitution and it outlines how you clarify your organizations purpose. Part of the idea here is not just crafting a compelling inspiring purpose statement but also I go through a bit of a marketing instruction because you are going to need to do a marketing campaign with some of these ideas.

Chapter four is the meat of the organizational constitution and it’s about values and defining values in behavioral terms.

Chapter five we combine the strategies and goals. In this chapter I give you worksheets to help you formalize these strategies and goals.

Chapter six is titled Your Organizational Constitution Must Be Lived. This is the piece where you want to engage everyone in the implementation. You also want to describe the way, model the way, and then align the way as you start to look at how people embrace your valued behaviors.

In chapter seven there is a discussion about how to gather feedback around valued behaviors.

As we get in to chapter eight and nine we start to look at vitally important pieces. Chapter is titled Dealing with Resistance. As you begin to engage people in a culture change like this you will be messing with power structures that won’t be happy with you. This chapter explains how a leader should address resistance and be steady consistent with this change.

Chapter nine is about hiring. You put your culture at risk every time you hire a new leader or a new team player so I outline how to recruit, interview and assess players to make sure there is a culture fit.

Chapter ten is about implementing the organizational constitution. There are five questions in each of the 10 chapters and in this chapter you will score your culture effectiveness assessment which will show you where you are now and what you need to do to move your organization forward.

Notable Quotes From The Book (18:41)

“I used to see my job as managing processes and results and now I see my job as managing people’s energy.” –Unknown

The Credibility/Inspiration Of The Author (0:42)

I am a speaker, blogger, podcaster and writer. I am also what I call an executive consultant. So I do executive coaching usually to help leaders align their corporate cultures so that they can lead better. I have also been affiliated with the Ken Blanchard Companies now for almost 20 years as a Senior Consultant.

It’s the core driver of my passions and my work with clients over the past 20 years. I’ve done a lot of work around facilitating skill building and consulting to leadership teams and the core opportunities are often that the culture that the business operates in doesn’t support these new skills. When I started 15 years ago very proactively in doing consulting around creating a more intentional culture I found that it was way more gratifying. So my primary inspiration was behind putting these proven practices and steps in to book form.

Other Books Recommended By The Author (19:36)

Leading At A Higher Level by Ken Blanchard

More Information About This Book and The Author

Buy The Culture Engine by Chris Edmonds on Amazon today

Visit TheCultureEngine.com to learn more about Chris’s book and get a free chapter

Visit DrivingResultsThroughCulture.com to learn more about Chris’s podcast and blog

Follow Chris Edmonds on Twitter and Facebook

More Information About This Episode

Download the full transcript here (coming soon)

Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud

Related books: The Discomfort Zone by Marcia Reynolds | Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice The Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland | The Best Place To Work by Ron Friedman

Relevant advice and tips: 5 Steps to Promote Innovation in the Workplace

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Wade Danielson

Wade is a 4-time serial entrepreneur and is the Founder/Host of The Entrepreneurs Library. With a long time passion for reading books, Wade created an online resource and podcast for entrepreneurs who love to read personal and business development books. His long-term goal in life is to start an entrepreneurial home schooling program for children of business-minded families.