Congratulations, you’re the new CEO. What should you do first? Simple: start believing.
Today’s CEO is nearly always charged with generating some sort of rapid transformation. A recovery from bankruptcy, stemming losses and generating sales growth, reinvigorating product and technological innovation, adding a new line of business, expanding into international markets. Things that 20 years ago may have seemed impossible are table stakes for the modern CEO.
These challenges require belief: belief in an audacious goal and belief in the virtually limitless power of people. Walt Disney famously said, “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.” He was only able to achieve the impossible, because he convinced himself and countless others to believe it really could happen. Building a massive theme park on 25,000 acres of Florida swamp land must have seemed like the punchline to a joke, but Walt made them all believe. You know what happened next.
That’s the Culture of Belief in action. And creating it is job number one. Your team has to believe in you, believe in your plan and, above all, they have to believe in themselves.
There are five foundational elements that make up the Culture of Belief:
Trust
Energy
Empowerment
Risk-Taking
Failure
Trust is vital. It’s a two-way street and it must be earned. You have to trust your people and they have to know they can trust you. Nothing moves forward without trust. End of story.
Energy is simple. Lead by example. Be present. Visit the clients. Talk to people throughout the organization. (Really talk to them, like humans. More on that in a future post.) Get out there and do it. Energy is contagious.
Empowerment. Giving people power helps build trust, creates new opportunities and often yields surprising results.
Risk-Taking and Failure. These are listed together because you can’t have one without the other. You must foster a culture of taking risks, accepting failure and using both as a tool to learn and grow.
And don’t forget to believe in yourself, too. Your vision, your plan, your process. Even when it goes wrong – and it will – believe in your ability to recover and get back on the path.
Rapid transformation is hard. Almost impossible. Unless you truly believe.
Culture of Belief 