Part 2 of this series on culture covered working out who you are and what you stand for. Whether or not you got some answers out of that will entirely dependent on how much effort you put in. I'd love to put it differently, in a way that doesn't sound like my mum, but that's the way it is.
Once you've done all your brainstorming, bring it together into one or two coherent sentences to form a personal mission statement. As Stephen Covey says, it can help to start with the end in mind: you have an idea now of who you are, where you want to end up, who you want to be, so what few sentences will help focus you on that goal?
If you're about to gloss over this and can't really see the value because you feel you roughly-sort-of know, here's a reason to actually write one down: it will stop you wasting time on distractions. I was offered a job about 8 months ago and on paper it was pretty great: flexible hours, working for a sport I used to compete in, a role I had experience in. Lovely. But whilst it was a fantastic and much needed compliment at the time, it didn't take me long to see that it wasn't in line with what I really wanted to achieve. As much as I wanted the mental stimulation and the conversation of adults, I said no and continued learning how to be a mum.*
And for the daunted of you out there (as you all should be: this whole shebang has been a big task), please remember that nothing you write has to be set in stone. We all grown and change and learn new things, so our mission statements should evolve as well.
They can be as simple as...
"To have fun in my journey through life and learn from my mistakes" - Richard Branson
Or as irritatingly pious as...
"To use my gifts of intelligence, charisma, and serial optimism to cultivate the self-worth and net-worth of women around the world." - Amanda Steinberg
Or as brilliantly intelligent and beautiful as...
"Use my creativity, bluntness and curiosity to build authentic relationships" - Me
Right: moving on.
You can guess the next bit... you now need to do something similar to this with your business/team/family. Except it's more fun with others. I highly recommend getting everyone involved into the kind of brain storming session you did last week, but obviously bent towards the team you want to be.
If you like (and if you run the show), maybe come up with a list of values first and ask your team to rank them. That way you have some control over the outcome but your team will also be able to take ownership of the culture and help you build it. Again, there's no right or wrong answers to these values; if you and your team value fun and creativity over punctuality and appearance, that's a-ok because when you all agree on it and believe in it, you will attract customers who also prefer a wacky sense of humour to keeping time. But you do need to vocalize these things with your team to make your business stand out.
Then the next step is communicating these values to your customers.
*aka, learning how to be patient and empathise with a small person despite having cauliflower cheese in my hair.
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