Many of us dream of working in an environment that energizes us and is surrounded by competence.

In this episode, I’ll discuss how you can improve your organization’s culture—the leading predictor of future growth and profitability—in just a matter of days.

Regardless of your current culture situation, the following four-step approach can help you dramatically improve it in just a few weeks.

Step 1: Plan a proven transformation that wins over 95 percent in a day. While this may sound impossible, numerous organizations have successfully transformed their teams to a “bring it on” attitude in a single day, but it must be done the right way. IF culture isn’t radically different the next day, you missed the mark. Also, metrics such as your culture scores, deposits, and cross-sales ratio should catapult. But you need to hit the mark and win their hearts while giving them skills they never dreamed they could implement.

Step 2: Ensure that the day following the “all-in transformation” is entirely different, with immediate accountability and celebration for the changes that matter.  As a part of the kick-off, managers need to transform the very nature of what they do. They need to understand that the very next day, they are responsible to make sure all their team members hit their metrics every week—not in a scary way but by being an enlightened leader that coaches, supports, practices with and celebrates their team members WHILE making expectations clear and systems ridiculously easy to follow.

Step 3: Fix the “middle management” breakdown. In talking with hundreds of bank CEOs every year, I hear repeated concerns about whether their middle managers are capable to execute their lofty goals. Most managers get the three step training program to be a manager. 1) Here’s your desk, 2) here’s your phone, 3) good luck. They need to be given practical skills that transform performance quickly and sustainably. Most management training is ridiculously academic. That won’t work.

Step 4: Ensure your organizational development systems achieve higher highs and higher lows in your culture scores.  Since cultures never go straight up, you must anticipate and be prepared for the upsets that can otherwise cause them to spiral down.

To recap, the four steps are:

Step 1: Do it right the first time.
Step 2: Make sure the next day is filled with systems to ensure the transformation sticks.
Step 3: Solve the middle management breakdown.
Step 4: Implement organizational development systems to avoid failed experiments.

Your past doesn’t define your future if you do things right. With a high-performance culture, you can experience the pride and peace of mind that comes with staying in the top 10 percent of your peers.

Tune in for the next episode, where I’ll discuss how to elevate your culture transformation and up your performance culture transformation.

– Roxanne Emmerich

Please watch the video above and share it with your exec team and board.