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Every business owner wants a thriving culture, but too often, they end up with something average—not bad, but not great. It’s just… okay. And no one loves “okay.”
The truth is, this happens all the time for common, predictable, and—most importantly—fixable reasons.
After facing this challenge in my first business and working with hundreds of others, I’ve learned there’s a clear way to turn an average culture into one you and your team love.
Ready systemise greatness? Let me walk you through a simple, proven three-step system to create a culture that excites your team and drives performance.
We’ve successfully embedded this in businesses big and small, including a major UK brand with over 10,000 employees. It works, every time.
Average cultures don’t arise because employees lack drive but due to human nature.
As a business owner, you’re likely a risk-taker, future-focused, and willing to pursue long-term goals. But - generally - your employees are different.
They are still swayed by the evolutionary part of their minds that learnt the key to survival is avoiding change unless it is 100% necessary for survival.
So no matter how committed, motivated and passionate your team are, thousands of years of evolutionary conditioning is pulling them away from growth and towards established routine.
This tension leads to a culture that feels stagnant—bouncing between routine and reactive firefighting.
Systems Are The Key. With the right systems in place, you can break through this evolutionary conditioning and create a thriving environment that develops the confidence of your team and performance of your business.
To build a high-performance culture, you have to override evolutionary conditioning with accountability, not micro-managing.
If you’re a ‘nice’ leader I know you want to resist this to not put pressure on your team.
Not putting pressure on your team is bad for your team. Your team want to achieve more and have more self-confidence. They get that by having pressure put on them to be better and going through the process of growth.
You create this accountability by standardising that every person and team in your business is measured across the following three areas quarterly.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) come first. They show you and your team members how well they're performing in their day-to-day roles. KPIs give work meaning and provide logical feedback on performance.
Without KPIs, how can your people know if they're doing a good job? How can you recognise and reward your top performers? How can you identify and support those who are struggling?
You can't.
Without KPIs, you're limited to recognising who appears to be working "hard" when you're around - not who's actually performing - and that's detrimental to your people, culture, and business.
Every person in your business and team should have three KPIs.
Image from the Better Happy Personal Development Plan - Included in the Better Happy Business Operating System Course
If you're unsure where to start, use the "numbers-only communication" question:
Imagine you're on a desert island for three months, and someone is covering your job or team. You can only receive updates in numbers.
What three figures could tell you if things are going well or if it's all falling apart?
This approach will help you easily identify three KPIs for every person and team.
Action Item - Establish initial KPIs for every person and team within the next 7 days (you can involve them in the process)
OKRs (Objectives Key Results) standardise growth and innovation in your business.
All businesses need to adapt and improve continuously.
An OKR is a statement of improvements a team or person commits to, along with a system for tracking progress.
Image from the Better Happy OKR workbook included in the Better Happy Business Operating System Course.
Every person and team in your business should have 1–3 OKRs they're responsible for and report on quarterly.
There's an employee retention and engagement benefit here too.
One common source of employee frustration is knowing how to improve things but feeling unheard. OKRs solve this problem.
The objective is the overarching statement of what's to be achieved,
e.g., "Make our onboarding process more efficient and enjoyable."
The key results are how progress is tracked and measured on that objective:
e.g.,
1. improve onboarding rating from 3 *to 4*
2. reduce onboarding time from 5 hours to 3 hours
3. decrease onboarding admin time from 2 hours to 1 hour.
Example of a team OKR over a 12 week period
Action Item - Have your teams and team members create their OKRs within the next 7 days. Start with a simple list or spreadsheet.
Finally, score your people on your core values/behaviours every quarter.
This is vital to address the issue of having someone who's great at their job but is also a poor cultural fit.
Without measuring people against your values, you risk keeping bad culture fits in your business.
Behaviours alignment score section from the Better Happy PDP Template - Training available in the Better Happy Business Operating Systems Course
No matter how good these people are at getting results, in the long run, they damage your business. Like a virus, they slowly erode your culture.
The process is simple: Define your top 3–5 core values/behaviours.
During each quarterly check-in, score your team members against these values using a three-point scale:
- They haven't displayed the value or have shown behaviour contrary to it
/ They've displayed the value but could embody it more
+ They've exemplified the value
This scoring system holds people accountable for the behaviours you need to see in your business or team.
Action Step: Define and embed your core values, and start evaluating employees each quarter.
Building a business that thrives without your constant presence starts with accountability.
By embedding KPIs, OKRs, and values-based assessments, you’ll create a system that fosters continuous growth, strong culture, and empowered employees.
Yes, it’s a shift, but once you see the results, you’ll never go back.
I am a best selling author, business owner and consultant. As a previous military intelligence analyst, resident with monks and burnt out business owner, I now help business owners, leaders and managers create cultures of health, happiness and high performance without burnout.