Good Comes First: How Today's Leaders Create an Uncompromising Company Culture That Doesn't Suck

by S. Chris Edmonds, Mark S. Babbitt, Venus Williams (Foreword)

Discover the practical, step-by-step guide to creating a workplace culture that’s better for employees, customers, and stakeholders—and your company’s bottom line.For decades, talented people have tolerated old-school leaders who put results before respect, toxic company cultures, and workplaces that suck. But those days are over, and if leaders want to attract and retain the best employees—while improving productivity, customer service, employee satisfaction, and profits—it’s time for them to create work cultures where good comes first. The problem is that because the corporate world has too often been driven primarily by results, we seldom ask leaders to change their work cultures. Even if we did, most leaders don’t know how. This book provides the actionable inspiration and practical direction needed to make that change happen. In Good Comes First, S. Chris Edmonds and Mark S. Babbitt go beyond theoretical advice, using their combined 50 years of experience to present proven strategies for creating purposeful, positive and productive work cultures. Cultures where good comes first for employees, customers, leaders, and stakeholders—and where improved business outcomes quickly follow. In these pages, readers will learn Appreciate why a good comes first culture is a business imperative – especially for younger generations.Distance yourself from the competition that maintains its undefined work culture (one that most likely sucks).Identify what “good” means for your company in today’s business climate – and in the future of work.Define your uncompromising work culture as you build a foundation of respect AND results.Formalize your team’s servant purpose so that everyone understands how what your team does improves lives and communities.Specify respectful behaviors, so your desired values are observable, tangible, and measurable.Align your entire organization to your desired work culture – where good comes first every day.Assess the quality of your current work culture by measuring and monitoring how well your leaders and your executive team demonstrate your servant purpose, valued behaviors, strategies, and goals.Hold everyone accountable for both respect and results through modeling, celebrating, measuring, coaching, and mentoring leaders and team members.Implement real, needed change – and quit “thinking” and “talking” about change (but never really get change started).Become a change champion while creating a lasting legacy as a business leader.Build a team of good people doing good work in a good company. What’s more, Good Comes First shows you where potential barriers to success hide—and how to push through them—and illuminates the moments when you’ll feel the most satisfaction and gain the most traction.After reading this book, you will see that when done right, change is not only possible—it’s practical, powerful, and profitable. And you will realize that you are the right person, at the right time, to make that change happen.

Genres: Leadership

304 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 28, 2021

About the author

Speaker, author, and executive consultant with own firm, The Purposeful Culture Group. Working musician. Photographer.

Reviews

[Puty]

Average good book of management and leadership. The one that make you feel like you've read what's written there somewhere else 😅

[Beth Beutler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Respect is as important as results

Good Comes First is a radical approach to making sure that respect is treated as important, if not more important, than the typical measurements of success like sales figures and profit. An actionable plan to transform culture is provided, with the authors speaking truth ("This won't be easy") kindly. Even smaller companies and solo-preneurs can benefit from asking themselves the important questions about values and how to tangibly measure whether they and their team are living up to them.

[John Thurlbeck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Culture! A buzzword many use but few truly understand.

If you are part of a dysfunctional organisation, where respect for you and your contribution is in short supply or absent, and values are espoused but not enacted, then fear not! Salvation is now at hand.

In a practical, step-by-step guide to creating a purposeful, positive and productive work culture, this new book by S Chris Edmonds and Mark S Babbitt seriously hits the spot! The coauthors talk the reader through three sections - first - the why - with examples. Second, they offer tools on how to create a culture that doesn't suck. Third, they explore how to overcome the likely roadblocks along your journey.

The book is no overnight wonder, miracle cure, but a steadfast process that takes you and your organisation on a journey to create a body that values respect for the individual as much as the results they produce. It will also help you seriously address what they term Boomer Male Syndrome, which seriously handicaps too many organisations in reaching that balance between caring and respecting your team and achieving the results your customers desire.

I do not doubt that good comes first, and I highly recommend this book. However, maybe one of the first questions for you along the way is how you would define good in your business?