What I Learnt in Business - 19th April - Culture... What Culture?

So the first thing I learnt in business last week is don't underestimate the power of excellent customer service. And this is not something I did, it's something I experienced. So for the project that I'm working on, I was in Melbourne last week. And with that go live, we were dealing with lots of different vendors and one of them was Toll. Yes, Toll the delivery drivers. The driver that we had at the hospital I was working in Melbourne, went above and beyond to make sure that we were having a great experience and everyone was feeling happy and comfortable with the work that he was doing.

Something as simple as delivering an item, he was an absolute expert in, he really took the time to understand the hospital environment that we were working in. He just prioritize doing a really good job for us. And it absolutely left a lasting impression. So for him, he probably was just that little bit friendly, that little bit more knowledgeable but, we can't talk highly enough on this one specific driver that we had from Toll with our project last week. So do that little bit extra and you'll leave a lasting impression.

The second thing I learnt in business last week was to know how to escalate efficient. Things happen, whether it's in a project or in your business or in your job, it's not always smooth sailing. Things happen, it's inevitable, but you do need to know when you need to escalate and also how to do it efficiently. So if you're dealing with an issue that is so time bound, that it needs all hands on deck immediately, sending an email or calling people separately is not going to be the way to go. For me, I'd like to bring everybody who's in, who's impacted and who can make a difference on a call, all listening to each other, all hearing directly what the issue is and not ending that call until there's an action plan. And then having agreeance of how often you're going to check in with each other to make sure that action plan happens and the issue is resolved. So don't just escalate and run, escalate efficient.

And the third thing I learnt in business last week is just take the time in your business if you are a business owner, or if you are a team leader to work on the culture in your team. So I interview people all the time to work with us at LVL Up, and one of the things everyone says is I want to work somewhere with a really great culture. And we always say, "oh, we've got a great culture" (which I think we do here at LVL Up). But, how can I articulate it? Well, now I can. So we spent some time as a team last week, really getting to the crux of what is our purpose? What is our mission? What is our vision and how are we different from other projects specialists? And it was really interesting exercise because just putting that onto paper, we were able to bring our style and our personality and our culture on a page. And it really was excellent.

So we can now culturally onboard people, interview effectively and when we are entering new projects or working with new clients, we can also say, Hey, this is, this is the culture, and this is the behaviours you can expect from LVL Up. So do spend some time on culture. And don't just put it on a piece of paper and file it away. Bring it up as often as you can with your team. So from this week I'll be asking the team how they're living our culture and our values at the organization.