Ep #212 CEO Series: Culture Creator

A CEO is first and foremost a manager of people. Most entrepreneurs don't actually want this role, but nevertheless, it is necessary, even if it is a team of one (yourself). Many founders I work with start businesses to be in charge and escape a bad boss or poor work environment, but fail to intentionally set up a positive culture. They develop some poor habits, like overworking and not celebrating wins,  that are hard to break later with a team. 

A true CEO embraces this opportunity to set up a great culture when it is JUST them and works on him or herself to become the boss she or he wants to be when there is a team around them. On the podcast, I share with you why culture is so important and some resources to use as you put on your CEO hat to create the culture you desire.  

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Transcript

Sari  0:00  
Welcome to your Food Business Success. This podcast is for early stage entrepreneurs in the packaged food industry ready to finally turn that delicious idea into reality. I'm your host Sari Kimbell. I have guided hundreds of food brand founders to success as an industry expert and business coach, and it's got to be fun. In this podcast, I share with you mindset tools to become a true entrepreneur and run your business like a boss, interviews with industry experts to help you understand the business you are actually in, and food founder journey so you can learn what worked and didn't work, and not feel so alone in your own journey. Now let's jump in!

Sari  0:49  
When you truly embrace your role as a CEO and step into that power, the hidden truth is that you actually become a manager of people and of the organization, rather than just the product. You may have started your business to get away from people, to get out of a toxic company culture, but surprise, you now get to create your own culture, and today in the podcast, we're going to be talking about how to really cultivate and focus on creating an amazing culture, even if you are a business of one. 

Sari  1:31  
Welcome back to the podcast. I'm so excited you are here with me today, and we are continuing the CEO series. And I cannot wait to talk to you about this topic today. It's all about cultivating and creating an intentional culture. Whether you like it or not, your business has a culture, and it could be a business of just you, but you are still creating culture. You are still creating a way of being in the world. And the reality is, a successful business, a business that is thriving, that is sustainable, that is self managing, has to rely on other people. The little secret is when you become a CEO, truly in your business, you actually become more of a manager of people and really holding the intentional culture that you want to set, holding that tightly, holding the guidelines, the boundaries, the guardrails of that, that becomes your number one job over the product. That's all secondary. It all becomes about inspiring people, creating a great atmosphere to work. And you might be thinking that I'm just talking about, well, when I'm big enough, when I have a team, when I can hire people, no, I am talking about right now, even if you are starting out as cottage food, as a person of one, wherever you are at, you get to decide, as a CEO, putting on your CEO hat, that you are creating an incredible company culture. I would argue that it's actually the most important to be thinking through some of these things before you ever hire a team. You don't want to bring in nasty habits that you have formed as an entrepreneur, and then hire hoping people just read your mind and solve your problems, and then you don't know how to communicate, you don't know how to create great culture, and you end up that those first couple hires can be really painful. So I'm trying to save you from that pain. I have seen it over and over again, and it is possible to avoid some of the pain. Yeah, you're going to have some learning and some mistakes. But by becoming a CEO, even if you're just a solo entrepreneur right now, still putting on your CEO hat and deciding ahead of time what kind of culture you want to create in your business is so essential. I would imagine that some of you, if not many of you, have this vision, this dream of starting a business to get away from maybe a poor company culture, right, a toxic company culture, and that you have visions of like, I'm going to create something that's way better, or at the very least, you're like, I'm going to work for myself so that I don't have to deal with a toxic boss. I don't have to deal with unreasonable requests. And I get to, you know, steer the ship, captain the ship, and decide where, when I'm going to work, and how I'm going to work, and all of that, which is one of the huge benefits of entrepreneurship. But I see, over and over again. We actually don't learn how to do this. This doesn't come naturally, right? Most of us don't get trained in organizational, cultural leadership, and I am obsessed with it. It's something I've always really loved to learn about. And like I said, I've seen both sides, where I've had amazing leadership and I've had really toxic, really poor leadership, and I see how everything breaks down. When is the poor leadership? 

Sari  5:28  
Okay, so I'm going to get into the why and what it is, but I'm going to remind you a couple more times that I don't want you to just be thinking about, oh, this is when I have a team, because most likely you already have a team, even if it's some service providers, like a graphic designer, or maybe you're working with somebody like me, or you have other people that are helping along the way. So it may not be, you know, officially, like your employee team, but we all are having to work with other people. Your business does not get done without other people helping you. Not an island, right? So we all need people all the time in our business, it just grows as our business grows. But even that, I don't want you to think, well, it's just about other people. I want you to be thinking like, okay, this is me in my business and I am a team. I am a member of my own team. And so I want you to apply everything I'm talking about today to yes, to an outside team, but also to you as the boss, as the maker, as you know, the manager, wearing all your different hats, apply these things to you. Alright, so the first thing is, why is company culture so important? Well, number one, it attracts strong talent. Again, that could be you. You have strong talent. You make an amazing product, you have desire and excitement and willingness to try a business. So attracting strong talent is a huge reason then retaining great talent. I was reading some stats about this this morning to prepare, and 62% of people who quit their jobs named toxic culture as the reason, and that was the number one reason that people quit jobs over salary, even over a boss that they didn't like or disagreed with. It was a toxic culture. So we want to retain people, and that includes you and a great culture increases productivity, efficiency, innovation and customer service. And I would hope, as a CEO, that we can all agree that, yes, we want more of that in our business, in all the literature, in all the books that you read about company culture, one of the first things that they all talk about is that you need a clearly defined mission, vision and values. This is a non negotiable for any kind of business. I don't care how small you are, and if you're a solopreneur, you probably have at least a general idea of what this is in your head. And believe me, these can evolve over time, but we want to get it out of our heads. You have a vague idea of at least what your mission is, right, at least a little bit of your vision. Some of you are much clearer than others. It's okay, but this is one of the first things that we do in Master Your Business, is to define these things, is to get coaching from me to make sure is that really what you want, is that really your own vision, or is that a vision that somebody else told you you should have? This is about you, your particular definitions of success and what creates a beautiful business. And so we want to make sure it's aligned truly with you, because it's got to feel authentic. It's got to feel real. Otherwise you will give up if it's not really what you want, right? This is way too hard to be doing something for somebody else. And values, you might have some values kind of internally, just hanging around in your head, but we get them out there, we look at a whole huge list of values, and we say, what three to five, and five is a high number. We really want three values that are the guiding principles, that are the compass for our business. We need something that we can point to for ourselves. And then for others to help us make decisions. And so if you have not done that, Master Your Business is now open for applications, and you should come and do this work with us, because we will create this document and define it so that you know how to make decisions, how to take action. It's going to help. It's going to make things so much easier. 

Sari  10:24  
But if you think about your company culture, people, including yourself, people need to know that their work matters, that the time that we spend, because think about how much time you spend at work, maybe this is a J O B, you know, regular job, or maybe this is on your business. Think about the number of hours that you spend. We want to know that our work, our contribution, matters. It makes a difference. It's not just the clicking down, the ticking of seconds and minutes and hours away, that there is something bigger. There's a bigger impact there. And having a really, you know, it doesn't have to be like, inspirational by some other metric, but inspiring for you that resonates with other people and resonates with you that you're like, I am excited to get out of bed every day and go to work for this mission, for this vision, and I'm choosing to do it aligned with these values. It makes things so much easier. And when you start hiring a team, when you start even just finding service providers, right? Like going and finding people who align, who see your vision, who are aligned with your mission, aligned with your values, makes that working relationship so much better. At its heart, I really think that company culture is up. It's about people, right? And it's about the way that we interact with each other. It's about framework and rules for how we communicate. That I think is one of the most essential pieces of a thriving company culture, and it's certainly the opposite when it's a toxic culture, right? You can think about, in your own case, if you've been in really poor work culture environments, the communication probably really sucks. It's really terrible, right? And you don't know which way is up. You don't know what's expected of you. People talk to you poorly. You're not seen, you're not trusted, and you don't trust other people. And so I think that this is where you really need to do your work as a CEO to learn more. And I'm really excited in 2025 with our 10x Mastermind, we're going to be doing more of this work where we are diving into some of the books that I really love around creating great communication frameworks and having some kind of rules of the road, both for how we communicate, Up, Down, Vertical, sideways, with our different team members, and how we create trust. So the two books that I really love for this, and there are so many manuals and books and and things that you can read about how to create great communication in a workplace. So these are by no means definitive, but the ones that resonate for me are two. It is EOS, the EOS system, Entrepreneurial Operating System, by Gino Wickman, and he has a book called Traction. Now I'm a big fan you guys know of Dan Sullivan and strategic coach, and I'm actually in Strategic Coach right now, Gina Wickman was also in Strategic Coach. Might still be at the high, high, high levels, but he was in strategic coach, and he actually created EOS, borrowing many of the principles from Dan and creating this framework, this operating system on how to run a business. Now this is specifically for when you do have employees and how you're going to relate to them. I have a number of clients in my Reinvention coaching program who are solopreneurs or have small teams, or wanting to create small teams. And so this is one of the books, one of the resources that we often will look to when we talk about how to meet with your you know, your different people on your team, and the framework for creating great communication, how we talk about things. And so I love EOS, and the book that you could pick up to learn a little bit more about that is called Traction. And I'll put the link for these in the show notes as well. And so that's just like a more like, I would just call that like an operating system, like, do this at this time, and here's how we meet in meetings. And I will say that there are a number, I know a number of CPG founders. Anna is one that that is using this. She was on the podcast a little while ago with Hoochbooch brands. But I know a number of brands who do buy into this framework, and it's just one of the options, right? There's many, but I do like it. I think it's clear. I think it works. It's relatable, and it works. I mean, it's got to work. So this could be a great place to start. 

Sari  15:55  
And then one of the things that I like combining that with the work of Brene Brown and her book dare to lead, which I highly recommend as you start to think about what does it look like to create a trusting culture? Because without trust, we don't have performance. We don't have what's kind of the buzzword right now is psychological safety, and so people are willing to risk, they're not willing to innovate, they're not willing to put themselves out there, if they don't feel safe. And so I love Brene Brown. She has an acronym in the book called Braving, and it's all about, how do we create trust with each other, and also self trust. And that's why I'm going to come back and say, This isn't just about when you have a team. This is about you right now, as a solo entrepreneur in your own business, are you creating self trust? And I'm just going to run through the acronym really quickly. Again, highly recommend you pick up the book and that it becomes, I'd say those two books would be like my company culture manuals, right? The two that I would use. And I think it's important that, as a CEO, you just have to decide. You have to figure out, like, what resonates with me, and then make decisions and just stick with it, right? Like, maybe it's some other totally different framework you do your research, or you can just trust me and be like I like Sari, I think she's got it figured out. We're going to go with this, right? That's okay, too. But the acronym stands for boundaries. And I'm just going to read a little some of the descriptions around self trust, because many of you are probably solo, but it is, did I respect so the B is boundaries. Did I respect my own boundaries? Was I clear about what's okay and what's not okay.

Sari  18:07  
As you scale your business, you are entering a whole new frontier that you have never crossed before, and I don't know about you, but if I was going to cross something that I've never done, or hike a big, tall mountain that I've never climbed before. I get a guide, and I want to invite you to a very special CEO conversations that we are having the 17th and the 19th of September. They're totally free, and they are executive level coaching from me for you to get your scaling questions answered. Bring it on. Bring me your questions, your issues, your problems. Where are you getting stuck? Where are you not sure what decisions you need to make, and let's handle it. Let's solve your problems. Let's get your questions answered, and I will help you make decisions so you can take the next action. It's totally free to attend. You can come to one or both calls. It's so helpful to learn from others, as well as get your own coaching. Go to masteryyourbiz.co to register. It's right there at the top of the page. I'll also put the link in the show notes, and let's have a chat. Let's get your CEO questions answered. 

Sari  19:29  
R is reliability. Was I reliable? Did I do what I said I was going to do, not just in the business, but also with your family, with your self care, with other commitments that you are making. Accountability. Did I hold myself accountable? Did I do what I said I was going to do? Did I admit my faults, if I messed up? Did I own things that were mine to own? Did I make amends? V is vault, and that means that you are trustworthy and that you are holding the things in that should not be shared with others. So did you respect your own vault and share appropriately? I is integrity. I'm a really big fan of this word integrity, and one thing I just want to note is that integrity comes from, I believe the Greek that just means whole, right? So we tend to take a moral attitude with the word integrity. Sometimes get a little bit warped, but this has nothing to do with morality or religion or anything. This is about being whole within yourself. Like, did you act in a way that feels in alignment and whole? Or were you out of integrity, where things are splintered and, you know, disintegrated? Did you act from a place? Did you make decisions? Was your yes, a true yes? Like, these are the things that it means to act from wholeness, from oneness within yourself. And it's so important that we get really clear on our own integrity, nothing to do with religion or morality. N is non judgment. Did I ask for what I needed? Was I non judgmental about needing help? And this is, oh man, you guys, we got to ask for more help. We need to seek outside support. We need to get help and ask for it. So many of us are just so wired that we can't ask for help. We should just be able to figure it all out our own. Who said, I personally think it shows more character and more leadership to ask for help, to go find who's to seek out resources, to not believe that you have to figure all of this out on your own, and that we want to be really non judgmental with ourselves. And then G is generosity, which is one of my core values, so one of the reasons I love this. But was I generous with myself, right? And much of the time that just has to be generous with words, was I like, yay, congratulations, like patting myself on the back, or am I being really mean to myself, being really generous with love for ourselves, you guys are doing really hard work, and we also didn't just beat the crap out of ourselves, right? When we don't measure up to some expectation that who said that was what should be expected anyway, right? So I love that framework, and I think that combined with traction, is a really beautiful platform to build great company communication. Okay, so that was the big one. A great company culture also is always prioritize employee well being. They're about creating belonging and to really value, to see that this isn't just a robot coming in and clocking in and clocking out. These are human beings, and the more the best CEOs in the world are the ones who really understand that you are in the people business, and that is about managing people and seeing them as humans, humans that we are, and all the flaws and all the ways that we mess up, and how do we still motivate each other, And how do we still motivate our team and so prioritizing things like mental health, physical health, emotional health really important in a work in a great company culture and time off, like truly off, disconnecting from work and learning and growth opportunities. So again, I'm going to circle this back around and say this is not just about outward team. This is about starting with you first. Are you prioritizing? Are you taking care of your mental health, your physical health, your emotional health? Are you giving yourself actual time off? Listen, I know how it is, as an entrepreneur and we get addicted to the dopamine hit of our phones and our email and the dings and all the things, and it is so important that we disconnect and actually take real time off the business will still be there. Now I'm not saying you're not going to need to hustle. I'm not saying that you're not going to be working maybe more than you ever did in your life at a regular J O B, when you start a business. I'm all about the hustle, but it's also creating really good boundaries and frameworks for what does your job as a solopreneur? What does that look like? In your business so that you also can maintain physical, emotional and mental well being. And we don't do this. We just go, go, go, go, and then we burn out. And believe me, I am speaking completely from experience here. I was very close to burnout in the Fall of 2022 and that's when I told you guys about creating a beautiful business in Episode 208. That was my big shift. For me is like, I'm not going to do it this way anymore. This is exhausting. I do not like going to work, and that's exactly what we don't want, right? So it starts with you. And would you actually want to work in your own business? Think about yourself as if you were an employee, and in many cases, you are. You're only a CEO for a very small portion of that time. The rest of the time you are an employee. You might be the salesperson, the production manager, the producer, right? The janitor, the social media person, on and on and on, right? So if you were the employee and you are, would you want to work in this business? Do you like the company culture? It starts now. It starts with prioritizing your own well being and creating really strict boundaries and guardrails around that. And then are you creating opportunities for learning and growth? We are living, breathing creatures, and we want to learn and to grow. And so are you creating opportunities for that? And if you're just staying stagnant, that may be where you're finding some blahs in your business. So go out and find new learning and growth opportunities and can along the these lines around employee well being, I mentioned belonging, and I think that this is a really important piece about your company culture that you really get to know and understand your employees and yourself, that you feel like you belong, that you are seen and that you are not just an automaton who's just walking in and doing right that like we see you as a whole Human and knowing what motivates your employees? How do they like to best receive feedback? How are they going to be most challenged? How are you going to get the best work from them? How do they like to be appreciated?

Sari  27:31  
I tell you what I my best bosses. It was never about the money. I mean, money's always nice, but they appreciated me verbally in front of others, and that was one of the pieces that I remember the most about my best bosses. And there are some amazing tests and questionnaires and different ways to measure things. Some of my favorites that I think are worth making, some of them are very small investments in but I love the Colby and we use this in strategic coach, and I'm going to be doing some more with this in master your business and the 10x mastermind. And with my I have some individual clients that I'm helping them with their company culture, and we are doing the Colby assessment, and that's one of my favorites. So stay tuned. I'll come back and share more about that human design if you want to go a little bit more on the woo side, but I'm a little woo so, but I love human design, and I'm actually bringing somebody into fuel in November to help people understand their human design, because it really gets out your purpose and how you can most easily create that instead of feeling like you're just forcing things all the time, the Enneagram can be an incredible business tool. It really gets to the heart of like, what are people's motivations? And recognizing that we're all different, and different people are motivated by different things, and how they come about the same exact circumstance is going to be very different. So it's all about like, how to first know thyself, right, and then understand when you start bringing on team members, or if you're working with somebody closely in you know they may not be like on your team, but maybe somebody fractional that you really understand what makes them tick and how best to talk with them and and what motivates them. Some other ones that I have worked with in the past are the disc and then Clifton Strengths. So those can be really useful tools as you start to first know thyself and then develop out your team. And then lastly, it's a it's a evolution, right? It's monitoring and nurturing your culture and starting with you as a. Group of one, team of one, and then the people that you are connecting with outside of your business, the the other who's that are helping you, and then eventually bringing in team members, and they can be part time. This isn't like you have to have full time team members and all of that, but creating this company culture that starts with you, and then you have the basis, right? You have like, here's how we communicate with each other, here's our mission, vision, values, here's how we treat each other, here's how we value well being. And then, as your company, your business, grows and scales, this too will evolve. And so that's why we say, as I said before, a CEO is really a people manager. You're really about creating the company culture and consistently showing up and like, how do I inspire my team to get the best out of them so that we can go kick some butt and go and get our vision. The reality is you're going to have to have a team in order to scale. It doesn't have to be a huge team. But I see it over and over again where this becomes the sticking point. This is where people get into a lot of trouble if they don't do this work ahead of time. So I want to encourage you to go apply for master your business if you're like, oh, I don't have that that these cultural frameworks set up. I don't have my mission, vision, values. I don't have the right frameworks. I don't know how to treat myself well. As an employee, I have really bad worker habits. As a boss, I'm a terrible boss. That's what often happens when you're an entrepreneur. You become the worst case scenario of a boss and your inner employee rebels, and it's terrible, and this is where we waste so much time in your business. So come get help. Let's solve these problems. Get frameworks, get tools. Let's skip the line, and I would love for you to go apply for master your business. Go to mastery biz.co, I'll evaluate your application, and I'll give you some video feedback, and then we'll get on a phone call or Zoom call and see if, make sure it's a good fit for you. So if you're at all curious, you already are in business and you want to create a better company culture. Come do it and master your business. All right, that is your mission, CEO, to go start creating a better company culture. Just start with one tiny little thing and then keep growing, keep learning, and I'm here to help you until next time. Have an amazing week. The smartest thing you can do as an entrepreneur is to invest in a who to help you with the how to speed up your journey and help you skip the line when you are ready for more support and accountability to finally get this thing done, you can work with me in two ways. Get me all to yourself with one on one business coaching, or join food business success, which includes membership inside fuel our community of food business founders, that includes monthly live group coaching calls and so much more. It's one of my favorite places to hang out, and I would love to see you there. Go to foodbiz success.com to start your journey towards your own food business success. This whole becoming a CEO thing can be a little daunting, especially if you've never done it before, and you are just so focused on being the maker of your product. But your business requires you to step into the role of a CEO. But if you want help, I have a CEO checklist that you can go and grab for free. Go to foodbiz. Success.com forward slash CEO. This will help you to understand what you need to be doing each week. When you put on your CEO hat, the more you can make time to work on your business and not just be in your business, the faster you will be able to grow and scale and create the business you love. You.