“You can’t outrun the culture.”
“The best attitude and the best plans can’t overcome a toxic culture.”
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
Or my personal favorite, one I just read recently, from the infamous Kevin Kelly:
“Never work for someone you don’t want to become.”
I’m late in life learning this lesson. I’ve experienced all ends of the spectrum – the incredible leaders you remember for a lifetime, a few who showed me everything I never want to be, and a couple in between.
I’m not sure there ever was a time when we worked for an “organization” or a “company,” but even if there once was, we don’t do that now. We work for and with individual people. We do our work in specific cultures that are fashioned, upheld, and fortified by the people within them. There is no such thing as company loyalty. There are individual people, forging relationships and culture, working together to solve problems that matter to real people.
People remember how you treat them, right? And we remember how we treat other people.
Choosing who we work for, and with…
Choosing how we lead ourselves…
Choosing what we tolerate, what we reward, what makes us buckle down and give our all, and what crosses the line and helps us see clearly that it’s time to walk away…
Choosing where to focus our time, energy, and resources, given what we value…
Choosing where to go deeper, where to push ourselves…
Choosing where to let go, letting an old season of life come to an end…
Choosing where to plant anew and put down roots, celebrating the new thing we’re building together….
We choose. We get to choose.
Life is short. Don’t waste your choice.