Welcome to the John Maxwell leadership podcast. My name is Mark Cole and I am excited today to not only have an incredible lesson by John Maxwell, but to be joined by my co leader, my friend, my partner, Tracy

Tomorrow and she and I after we listen to John together are going to come back and discuss this lesson both in our personal application as well as how we apply around the John Maxwell's

organization. So get ready because today John is going to be teaching on culture. In fact, John will be teaching you. He makes a statement in today's lesson. He says the most powerful factor in an

organization's success is its culture and he'll share with you three ways that culture is driven in and through an organization. I'm very excited for you to take this in now. If you're joining us visually, that's because you found us at

Maxwell podcast.com forward slash YouTube. Welcome. We're glad you're here. We're glad we are visually connecting some of you have already began sharing your impact story from the podcast and from the Maxwell brand by going to Maxwell podcast.com forward slash my impact story.

But for those of you listening today and you're just tuned in your home to end for a lesson on culture, I want you to go to Maxwell podcast.com forward slash culture. Click on the bonus resource button and there you will get some fill in the blank worksheet that will help you follow along as John teaches. So now that you have your pen, your paper, your fill in the blank worksheet. Let's hear from John Maxwell.

Today, I want to talk to you on the subject culture, the most powerful factor in an organization. More important than anything else is the culture of an organization. And culture is a way of life, cultivated over time through three things.

Culture is cultivated by number one behavior. Number two symbols. And number three systems. And these three things behavior symbols systems are outward displays of what is valued.

And that is what culture is culture is created as a result of the messages employees receive about how to behave around here. As human beings, we are hard wired to adjust and fit into the communities of which we are members.

This is essential if we are to become accepted socially and in the case of an employer, if we are to keep our job employees pick up these messages about expected behavior and adjust their own accordingly. And those who cannot or will not adjust tend to leave on their own free will or be ejected.

And these messages tell us what is valued in this organization. And they are received from three different sources. Again, behavior symbols and systems. For example, behavior. The behavior that is played out through others is especially those that are in positions of authority.

And behavior is what is done rather than what is said. It can be in small groups, one on one or it can be in large groups. But it is the behavior that is being fleshed out. When I passed it in San Diego, what we had was a church that was growing very fast. And we were land locked on a few acres and building. And we had to go through a major relocation. That's another story.

And we are in this land locked area and we are having to be creative and we had literally four services on Sunday morning trying to handle crowds. And so what I needed is I needed a lot of people to park off property because we didn't have enough parking space.

And so literally there was a place across the street and down the road and about a block away that you could park cars. And so I had to create a culture.

And so the behavior system that people could understand it by. And so when I told the leaders that they couldn't park on the property. When people joined the church, I said the good news is you become a member of the bad news is you can't park on the property.

And most congregations, the members, it's a country club for them. They get a park in the closest places. No, we parked in the farthest places. And what I did is I went to I would get there first in the morning because I'm getting ready for the day for services. You got to get mentally spiritually ready. So I'd go maybe at six o'clock in the morning. And I would park a block away and I would walk to the church. Now could I park right by the front door? Of course I could park by the front door.

I couldn't get my leaders to park away if I didn't park away. Are you seeing this? This is behavior. This is fleshing out by example what you want your other people to do. And you set your culture not by. Hey, you set your culture not by what you say.

You set your culture by what you do. Remember this. The greatest motivational principle in the world is people do what people see. So behavior is part of it.

Now symbols are also symbols such as how time is spent, how money is allocated office space, who gets the best offices, titles, who gets promoted, favored, how communication works.

What is symbolic about your business that creates the culture of it? For example, then again, I could take any of these and talk about them and illustrate it. Office space. Office space I've always felt is overrated.

Let me tell you a cute story. When I started my company in San Diego in joy out of I wanted to develop a company to resource leaders, who's we had very little money. We're just small. We're half of us who were volunteers in the beginning.

And so we were like a like a strip mall. We had a section there to have our offices and we were growing extremely fast. So I mean we had a handful of employees and pretty soon we got 50, 75, 100 and this thing's just it's just exploding.

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