Have you thought about what the culture of your company should be?  Do you open up to your staff so they know the real you?  Why not?  Perhaps you should.

If you do open up to your staff, and share your dreams, fears, frustrations, passions, and even a bit of your silly self, they’ll attach themselves even closer to you and your company.  When CEOs show more of their ‘real’ self, employees want to help you grow.

I was at Clint Greenleafs company the other day in Austin, Texas and this life size statue of his idol showed me a bit of the real Clint.  It also was a great indication as to why his company culture is as great as it is.

One of my favorite lines at the office used to be, “great day–take the rest of it off.’  I used to tease people with that and say it at 6pm.  I’d also say it to people at 10:30 am and blow them away.

Tell people to go home and relax once in a while.

We all know that as entrepreneurs we duck out of the office for our little stress breaks.  Let your team take some once in a while, too.

And if you really like your employees as much as you say you do, let them take the same amount of vacations, as you’d want.  Most employees feel that five weeks’ paid vacation (including their sick days) in addition to the statutory government holidays is about right.

Let them take it.

They won’t quit.  They won’t come into work sick.  And we all know the most productive time at the office is the day before vacation.

So give people time off.

To be sure they take this time off, force them to or they lose it.  The idea is to recharge your batteries regularly and not stockpile the time and have a meltdown.  Give them five weeks’ time, however, make them take all five weeks of time during the calendar year.

Tom Peters, in his book “ In Search of Excellence: Lessons from Americas Best Run Companies”, which was one of the first business books I ever read talked about management by walking around – MBWA.  It became the big buzz word 25 years ago and is still used today.

MBWA got into the fact that management tended to sit at their desks in private offices, or in board rooms with other managers who spent their time in private offices, and they made decisions about the business without having any real insights into the day-to-day or what the employees actually thought or did.

A mentor of mine Albert Koopman taught me about the South African way of leading teams.  And it’s very different from the American autocratic/paternalistic style where leaders decide, and leaders tell subordinates what to do, and then hold them accountable to do it.

As Albert explained to me, in South Africa the largest majority of the workforce are black.  According to Albert, “If you ‘tell them’ what to do they’ll fight back or simply won’t comply.  So what they do as managers in South Africa is tell the workforce what the goals are, show them the direction the company is going in, and then let the workers figure out what and how to do it.”

They essentially inspire a team to go where they want them to go.  This is how EVERY company should be led.

Facebook’s new office in Palo Alto

If you’re interested in showing people you’re committed to a work environment, the easiest way to do that is by getting rid of your private offices. Seriously. While this isn’t the only way to show your committed to the free-flow of information, I believe it’s a powerful way of setting the stage—so to speak—for your employees to pick up on the importance of free-flow information, feedback, and ultimately, success.

When I was a little kid in Winnipeg, Canada, I attended the first “open concept” school, which meant that there were no classrooms, no walls, and lots of great buzz. Sure, there were lots of distractions, but also lots of absorbing what others were doing, too. From this experience, I learned how to focus when I had to, and also how to filter out what I could learn from others around.

Building an open office doesn’t mean that the employees work out in the open and CEO and other senior staff can retreat to private offices. Everyone has to be out in the open—and I mean everyone. Of course, you can still have groups of people with glass walls between some areas. For example, why not create the “Finance Fishbowl” and put all the finance people in one area and give them a glass wall if needed. You can also go radical and have the only barriers be forty-two inch high work stations–that’s only three and a half feet, so you really aren’t blocking much at all.   Everyone can see everyone, which means no hiding.  If you aren’t working, it’ll be obvious.

The benefits of an open work space are numerous. For starters, open offices teach you to filter out the noise and still concentrate on your work. They also allow everyone to hear what’s going on, which means they’ll understand others’ roles better. Best of all? You’ll feel the energy and togetherness grow within the company because you can see everyone more than when they are hiding out in walled offices. Obviously if you want to have private work areas, spots to take confidential phone calls, or little places for private discussions, you can still have lots of small meeting rooms. But whatever you do, get out of your offices!

pic Chill Out Point

This interview with Sarah Robinson – the famed Escaping Mediocrity blogger – is all about Building an Awesome Company Culture.

No need to really say more – it’s worth the 1 hour listen -

Download it here… http://bit.ly/crhpHM – only takes 45 seconds…

It should really be called Dagney & Hank…

When culture has a chance to flow freely from individuals and across an organization, it grows stronger and more rapidly.

Once you get rid of private offices, make sure your employees aren’t divided from one another either.

Mix in sales with engineering, marketing with support. Put members of your leadership team in various parts and floors of the office.

Not only will this build culture, but also it will enhance each employee’s understanding of what other people do in your company.

How can you possibly be connected to your customer or your employees if all your la-di-daa senior executives are on the top floor or in a corner office with the door closed?

Don’t act all ‘Les Nessman’ by removing yourself from the same space your employees occupy. If you sit with them there won’t be an us/them mentality, and you’ll absorb the same work culture your employees do.

If you have private office, take a sledge hammer to the walls and put the door on eBay.

Also ideas like a ‘Dream Room’, a ‘Wii Room‘ and a ‘Nap Room‘ will be very popular and drastically help break down department barriers and reduce employee turnover.

What does your office environment look like when you first walk in? Is it organized? Fun? Stimulating?

People should be able to get an idea for what it’s like to work in your office from the moment they walk through the front door.

If you don’t bother with first impressions, believe me, people notice.

One of the companies I’ve mentored for years is called Nurse Next Door. The very first time I visited their office in British Columbia, paper and boxes were everywhere. It was a disaster, and I told them that.

They listened, and every Wednesday ever since then, they have held “Wasteless Wednesday,” a day where they throw out anything they can to make the office, the walls, and people’s desks look clean and neat.

The difference in their space and the mood of employees has been profound: the energy is different, and they can actually fit more people into the same space without feeling crowded at all. Best of all, just recently, they were named #1 Company to Work for In British Columbia!

Oh and here’s a tip, since it’s 2010 and all: GO PAPERLESS!!

Open spaces create transparent and energized work environments.

This leads to the development and transmission of office culture across people, departments, and finally, the entire organization.

Years ago, at 1-800-GOT-JUNK? we had all our employees on two wide open floors in an office. There were no walls.

Then we moved into a downtown office tower and had to use the 14^th floor of the building for the better part of a year while our real office space was constructed.

For the first time ever people had private offices, and it was interesting to see what happened.  For the first week or so, people loved having their own space.  They felt more focused, appeared to get more done and had the quiet they needed to think.  Then, after a week, the chatter started. People said, “I miss everyone,” and, “Where is Greg? I haven’t seen him in ages,” or, “Is so-and-so sick today?” It went on and on.  After about three weeks, it was unanimous: private offices killed the buzz and employees wanted their open workspace back.

Everyone knows you’re hiding out in your private office playing on FaceBook, Twitter or surfing porn.  So go join the rest of your team – open up your entire office space.  When I mentor CEOs I push them all to get rid of private offices.  Including their own.

This slide is at Google’s Zurich office.

Nothing kills creativity like boring photos on the walls or using super-traditional board and conference rooms when you’re running a new and exciting business venture. Boring rooms, mean boring employees, mean customers go elsewhere.

Go a little crazy and use the physical space as a blank canvas to elevate the mood of the team. For example, at 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, one of our boardrooms was called the Blue Sky Room.  We had a huge wall with a blue sky and clouds.

ReThink Marketing in Vancouver has a Lego room, a drum set, globes hanging from the ceiling, a ping pong ball board room table and Astro turf for carpet.

Don’t be confined to some old school vision of the workplace. You’re not an old school company.  Plus you’ll get Free Publicity from building an awesome company culture.

Some of you will balk at the suggestion to make it easier to socialize at your office, but it will quickly help you develop culture. Provide your people with a BBQ that is always kept clean and ready to use with propane so people can cook casually for lunch or dinner. This kind of interaction builds culture in an authentic and relatable way. With even less effort, have your kitchen stocked with free fruit, cereal, various coffees, teas and more. You can even have the food delivered weekly by the grocery store. Whatever you do, make people feel at home and they’ll work longer and harder for you.

I have a client in Toronto that I mentor called I Love Rewards. Two years in a row they’ve been ranked as one of the top companies to work for in Canada.  They actually create rewards programs to help employers create great cultures – so they get it.

One of the things I love most about I Love Rewards is that they have an employee area called the Red Point Lounge. Every Friday at 3pm, you can go have a drink there.  Their company drink is called the Red Point.  They have these little crystal glasses with Red Point etched into it, and all the employees – I’ve got one too – carry a little card that has the recipe for a Red Point drink on it.  A Red Point is one and a half shots of Crown Royal, one and half shots of Sour Puss Red Raspberry, and 3 shots of Red Bull. You have a couple of those and you’re cranking out some extra work at the end of the day.

In addition, the folks at I Love Rewards don’t take themselves so seriously that they can’t have a little fun. They have white leather sofas in their office. They have a casual dress code that they call “First Date Dress Code.” If you wouldn’t wear it on a first date – don’t wear it to work.  They get culture.  No-one quits I Love Rewards.