Culture: You Keep Saying That Word; I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means with Dino Watt and Joe Polish - Genius Network Episode #149

But the challenge is there's a lot of information out there about culture. What is a culture? Culture is this, culture is that, and all of these are great resources for understanding and recognizing what a culture is. But not often do they talk about actually how to build a culture.

What does culture actually mean? Learn how to cultivate a culture that separates you from the rest in today's episode of the Genius Network Podcast. In this episode, Dino Watt shares how to create a magnetic environment that attracts clients and superstar employees. He'll break down how many confuse culture with its perks and benefits, and explain how businesses have used sticky culture to create die hard fans. Dino and Joe will also reveal the three step persuasion process used by the most terrifying and benevolent leaders alike throughout history. If you'd like to join world renowned entrepreneurs at the next Genius Network annual event, then apply today for your invitation to attend. If you'd like to learn more about the Genius Network annual event or to apply, go to geniusnetwork.com in the classic.

Movie the Princess Bride's self proclaimed intellectually superior kidnapper Vizzini continually expresses his unbelief at his oft foiled plan by the dread Pirate Robert by exclaiming the word inconceivable. Finally, in a moment of frustration in hearing the word one too many times, his partner, the revenge filled Spaniard Inigo Montoya, turns to him and says in a Spanish accent, you keep saying the word I do not think it means what you think it means. And that was the worst Spanish accent on the planet. Okay? Since Carnegie Mellon professor Edgar Schein coined the phrase organizational culture in the 1960s, when it comes to the business environment, corporations have latched onto the shorter buzzword culture as a barometer, shortcut, cure all, excuse or deflection to attribute their company's success or failure. However, like Montoya's observation to Vizzini, business owners who simply tend to repeat culture over and over again, expecting a new result than the last, don't understand the proper use of the word. For over the last eight years, Dino Watt has disrupted the orthodontic and dental industry by helping private practice owners understand how to actually design a culture of success through using the culture equation, a simple but extraordinary powerful method for creating, cultivating and calculating the culture you want that will attract the a team of advocates to grow your business and a constant flow of your ideal clients. Understanding the equation has helped some of the greatest and sometimes most terrifying leaders change businesses, societies and even the history of the world. Dino's goal is to clear up entrepreneurs understanding of what a culture truly is, and and how to deliberately design one unique to their brand. By giving owners a specific process to develop and grow a company culture, leaders will now have the tools to finally create a truly magnetic culture. Enroll their teams and clients into it, and make sure they use the word culture. No one will question if they keep using a word that doesn't mean what they think it means. So welcome Dino Watt. Thank you, Dino.

Thanks, Joe. Appreciate it. Well, thanks for the intro and thank you for giving me the time, Joe, for sharing this. What I do is I help teach entrepreneurial orthodontics to a bunch of people who are professionals at what they do, but were never taught how to be entrepreneurs. And they go out and they buy businesses, and many of them should never have bought that business in the first place or have no business being in business. And I do that by helping them have stronger teams, create specific cultures, design cultures inside of their office, and have better relationships. And what I've done is I've created a thing called the Culture Equation, which I'm going to share with all of you. And by the time we're done here, you'll have a very clear understanding of what that is with. When we were all babies, the first thing we needed was just nourishment and somebody change our diapers and hopefully love us. And that's awesome. But a few months later, we started understanding and recognizing that there were different types of people and personalities. Some of them were ones that we wanted to gravitate towards and love and to cuddle with. And some of them we wanted to stay away from, and they gave us the creeps. And if I knew Jim do better, I could give a very good Jim do joke right now, but I don't, so I'll leave that up to Joe and. And then at one point, about four to five years old, we all decided just knowing and recognizing what people were was not enough. We asked the question, how are babies made? Basically, how do we design another human being? When we're entrepreneurs, the first thing we do is we just have some basic needs met. We want to make some money, we want to cover our bills and hopefully be able to grow our business. But as we grow our business, we also found out there were some challenges. And one of those challenges were we couldn't do it on our own. So we sought out help through consultants and seminars and different places. And we realized we needed advocates, we needed to grow our culture, and so we sought out information to do so. But the challenge is there's a lot of Information out there about culture. What is a culture? Culture is this, culture is that. And all of these are great resources for understanding and recognizing what a culture is. But not often do they talk about actually how to build a culture. As a matter of fact, what I loved is Last Genius Network, Lee Benson talked about the connection between culture and actually making money. And you can actually quantify the direct correlation between culture and making money. And it's something I espouse and talk about all the time. And I proved to my clients over and over and over again that if you focus on designing a culture, then you can actually make more money. However, as we've learned even from Keith Cunningham, who taught us that these things here, trips and time off and cool parties, that's not culture. Those are the perks of culture. But a lot of people will talk about, no, that's how cool our company is. We have a culture. We go on all these cool, fancy trips and stuff, and then we have other people who will talk about these things as the culture where it's, oh, no. We have a culture of fun and integrity and superior product and customer service. But those aren't actually culture either. Those are actually the traits or characteristics of a culture, just like you have traits or characteristics of a person. So still, the question is, how do we build a culture? But people talk about culture over and over again. I actually believe it's become a bunch of white noise to many of our team members and people out in the entrepreneurial world. So my question then becomes. Or actually my statement is, often, you keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means. So what I want to make sure that you understand, though, is that every company has a culture. It doesn't matter whether you're big or small. If you have make a lot of money or no money, you have a culture. But typically, if you don't deliberately design that culture, it will always be dictated by the strongest energy in the company, Especially if you have a small company. I deal with a lot of companies who have less than 20 team members. Well, that means that oftentimes the, you know, Debbie Downer or the, you know, pissed off Peter is the one who is going to be controlling that energy inside of your company. So one of the things that a lot of people do is they go and they say, okay, I'm a higher consultant. I'm gonna go read a book. I'm gonna go to a seminar. And they add things into their business, the culture that's already there. The problem is that if you have a contaminated culture to start with. No matter what you add to it, the result is going to be a contaminated result. Even if it's contaminated a little bit, you're still contaminated. So you have to actually go in and understand how to completely clean out that petri dish, clean out that business, and create a brand new culture. So again, we ask, what is culture? Well, my belief is this, is that the culture, an actual definition of the culture, if you look at history, is the magnification of a personal belief or commitment when joined with others who share the same belief or commitment. So how do we see that? Well, let's look at that through the culture equation again. But before we do, I want to warn you that it is too simple, that some of us will look at it and go, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that. But as Brendan Burchard talks about, common knowledge is not always common practice. So be careful not to discard anything here because it seems too simple unless you've got it dialed in 100%. And I'm going to give you some examples of that. The first is your vision. Not just a normal vision, but a relatable and retellable vision. I see a lot of people who have big, long paragraph vision statements, which are fine and good, but unless you can really nail down that vision, it makes it hard for other people to relate to it, number one, and retell it. Give an example. The oldest example that I could think of is Moses. Moses had a vision of, hey, slaves, let me take you to the where? The promised land. That was the vision. Let's all go to the promised land. Matter of fact, that vision was so relatable and retellable that he got people to follow him for 40 years. You would think that at 20 years, somebody would have stopped and said, hey, this guy doesn't know where he's going. But. But he didn't. They kept going 40 years into the wilderness because it was relatable and retellable. Steve Jobs think different. Does he have people who understand it and will tell everybody and their friends about it? Of course he does. He have people lining up around the block to get his products and to be a part of his company. Oprah Winfrey is a person that created a vision around how you can live your life, live your best life. And does she have crazed people who will follow her? Absolutely. People go nuts when it comes to Oprah. Right, because she created a culture around her. She has a vision that's relatable and retellable. The next is E. Expectations and energy Expectations that are relevant, engaging, action based and leadership led. I call them real expectations. A lot of people call these the core values. And I would agree with that. That's a whole nother event that I can talk about core values and how you make core values generic versus real, but we don't have time here to do that. And then next is the energy that you bring to that. The energy that creates fans, evangelists and traditions. And how we do that is to create people who will be your advocates for you. And lastly is support. Support that if somebody is adhering to the vision and following the expectations that they will be supported no matter what they do, without it's too much oversight and too much overbearing by you as the owner. So that's your culture equation. Well, how does this work in real life if you actually adhere to it? In fact, you implement this, you actually create what's called a magnet magnetic culture. The magnetic culture is one that overcomes price. Steve Jobs, another good example. Every single one of you knows somebody or knows someone who is a broke college student living on someone's couch. But what do they have? They have a Mac laptop, one of the most expensive things out there when it comes to laptops. They have it. It overcomes price. Disney is another example of that location. People run all over the place, come from all over the world to go to an amusement park competition, not a problem. Economy, not a problem. And right now, even pandemics. If you implement the culture equation correctly, it overcomes pandemics even. But the cool thing about this, the even cooler thing about this I just say, is that the culture equation can be used for good and bad. That's how powerful it is. So good we look at companies like Apple, like Whole Foods, like Starbucks, that have definitely created a culture that you could look at and say, oh, that's really cool. And Martin Luther King created a culture through having a vision, expectations, energy and support. But they also be used for bad. Now I'm not saying any of these companies are equivalent to Hitler, but he actually did create a culture through a vision. Very bad. Terrible vision, expectations and support. Juul, Monster Energy, Walmart, McDonald's, all these aren't the best for our world, but they know how to create a culture. So let me break it down for you again. The culture is simply this, the magnification of what a personal belief or commitment when joined with others who share that same belief or commitment. I'm going to give you two very basic examples that we all can understand. The first one is Disney. Disney's vision as the start of Disneyland was the happiest place on earth. Well, who can't relate to wanting to go? Even if you don't want to go to Disneyland itself, you want to be at the happiest place on earth. You want to live in the happiest place on earth. You want to be relatable. And it's relatable and retellable. Their expectations are relevant, engaging, action based and leadership led. Ignite the magical wonderment of childhood and entertain the world through vision and storytelling are their main expectations as a Disney cast member. The energy they bring. Do they have fans and evangelicals? Yeah. If somebody's gonna tattoo your vision or your logo onto their body, that's a fan. And people will walk around all day long wearing Mickey Mouse ears in Disneyland with nobody batting an eye because it's okay to do it there and support if you want to, you can learn how to be in a Disney Imagineer. Go to Disney Institute and even if you just street sweep, you actually can use your talents there and people will support it. The last one I'll use is the Genius Network itself. Joe has created obviously a vision for the Genius Network. Now, there are a lot of different things you can look at as a vision, but in my opinion, the most powerful vision that Joe's created is that's relatable and retailable is the world's greatest network for wisdom, connections, collaborations and resources. What is the expectations? Well, the expectations are that life gives to the givers and takes from the takers. That every problem can be solved with the right Genius Network. And of course, easy, lucrative and fun. And then the energy he brings those Johav fans, evangelicals and traditions. Well, we're all here and we get together in a black shirt in the middle of a blazing hot sun and we will take a picture because we're all fans and support adhering to the visions and following the expectations. The annual event is a way that he supports us. Who's not in the room is a huge way that he supports us. And lastly, he allows us to share $250,000 worth of value in 10 minutes, which is what I, I did for all of you and I appreciate the opportunity to do so. Thanks, Joe.

Well, let me do this. Let's see if anyone has any questions or comments or any final things. And let's see Jim Dew, say something about what you got out from Dino and how you're going to use it to kind of fix this toxic culture that you run over at do wealth management.

I always get stuff from Dino that was amazing. I think you know what I hear from that when I hear about. And you've used this example before, Joe, about getting Harley Davidson tattooed on people's arms. Right. It shows how committed they are to that. And I just think it makes me aspire to want just that people are so a part of the culture, whether it's employees or clients, that they want to be a part of everything you do in some way. You know, I'm not sure anyone's getting a Do wealth tattoo on their shoulder, including Mimi. But, yeah, I mean, I love that idea and that vision about make it so compelling and useful that people want to be involved or stand out in the sun to get their picture or whatever.

I look at it similar to that definition that ended up being in the Is selling evil video. When I was asked that question a decade ago. Getting someone intellectually engaged in a future result, that's good for them and getting them to emotionally commit to take action to achieve that result. The slide you showed with Hitler. There are a lot of people, companies, movements that really don't help people and in many cases can end up in the worst of situations. But there is, you know, the way you've. You've described how it's built makes all the sense in the world.

Well, I use McDonald's a lot as an example, right. I mean, I Admit I've eaten McDonald's before. Their fries are like crack. But they definitely have created a culture of, hey, if you want something fast and easy, we're the place to come. And it's not nutrition, it's not all that stuff. But the culture, if you really implement that equation over and over and over again, it hypnotizes people. And that's why I use the examples of Hitler. I'll just go through it real quickly that even say, you know, Hitler had this very evil, awful vision. He had expectations that only a certain amount of people could be in this club or certain type of person be in this club. But he supported you. So much so that if you chose to kill your neighbor, even if you were a lowly private in his army, if you were following the vision and the expectations, totally, okay, like, what other thing does that in the world? And that's how powerful it can be. And that's why I think sometimes we try to overcomplicate this when it's really just three very specific steps that can make all the difference. Just real quick, I actually teach this in a longer presentation, usually about an hour, and I talk about it in Your homes. You can do the exact same thing with your homes. Matter of fact, that's where it started was, what's the culture of your home? What's the vision you have for your kids and your family? What are the expectations that you have? In our family, for example, we have the expectation of we value experience over things. And so when my kids were younger, when they were at home, I don't have any kids at home now. When my son was mad that he couldn't get an Xbox, we would talk about, well, no, we get to go on a vacation to Jamaica as a family instead of getting the Xbox, you know, you can have that conversation. So it makes a huge difference. I see all your core values there. Right. And I love them, and I use them all the time with my clients and say, you need to display them this way that you can talk to them and you talk to your core values on a consistent basis. Like, every time you're going to say something, there's a core value in there, and that's where you live. And so if people understood that, it would just change the way they lead. So thank you.

Yeah. I'll tell you, I have forgotten at times to bring it up. And even with elf, I've just started to really bring elf, even though elf, I've been using it for years and how many people resonate with it and have told me how fundamental that is to them, thinking about how they run their business, who they do partnerships with, what they end up learning? So, yeah, there's a lot to it. So thank you.

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