cultivating culture Archives - 911�Թ�

Updated Mission Statement: “We make lives better”

Jason Beans — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 22:51:08 +0000

Recently, 911�Թ� adopted a new mission statement:

We make lives better.
911�Թ� takes the pain out of the healthcare experience
for those providing, receiving, and paying for medical care.

Though there was nothing wrong with our previous mission statement, it was a little hard to remember and did not seem to inspire people the way we wanted.

Revising 911�Թ�’s original mission statement was an exhaustive process. We considered hundreds of versions and modifications. We wanted to get it right.

I even tried Chat GPT once. I asked for a mission statement about a company that provides the services 911�Թ� does and takes the pain out of the healthcare process. It came up with:

“Our mission is to empower patients and simplify healthcare by reducing complexity and eliminating unnecessary pain points in the healthcare process, ensuring accessible, efficient, and compassionate healthcare for all.”

While it’s unlikely I’d ever remember a mission statement that long, for a first pass by an AI computer, I have to say I was impressed.

Still, the challenge persisted. To follow best practices, a company’s mission statement needs to concisely encapsulate its focus and value. For 911�Թ�, that meant accomplishing three goals with our new mission statement:

Inspire employees and clients alike with a shared sense of purpose.
Incorporate the word “better” to align with our tagline, A Better Way.
Demonstrate that we “take the pain out of the process” for all stakeholders – employees, payers, providers, and patients.

With these four words – We make lives better – I believe we’ve hit the mark.

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Driving a Customer-Centric Culture with the Net Promotor Score (NPS®)

Jason Beans — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 23:04:14 +0000

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Falling Through Two-Way Doors – Empowering Employees to Embrace Risk

Jason Beans — Wed, 19 Sep 2018 17:00:38 +0000

We live in a risk-adverse culture. I see this professionally and even at home with one of my young daughters. She’s talented in many areas, but she’s exceptionally hard on herself when she can’t accomplish something right away. In these situations, she becomes discouraged to the point she stops trying.

For a child, FAIL is nothing more than the “First Attempt In Learning.” As her father, it’s my responsibility to help her grow comfortable with failing so she can be the best version of herself.

Likewise, in business, one of the biggest mistakes I see talented people make in their careers is being afraid to fail. The prospect of failing is so intimidating, they pursue goals they are guaranteed to achieve rather than aim for more ambitious outcomes they could miss. They are so motivated to avoid error, they shortchange themselves and their colleagues, sacrificing creativity and ingenuity for the safety of the status quo.

To make any decision is to take a risk. Some percentage of our decisions will fail. According to JP Morgan’s Chief Marketing Officer, , “If you’re not failing, then you’re not learning.”

One of the best ways people can get comfortable making fast decisions is to focus on “two-way door” decisions making, rather than “one-way door” decision making. Jeff Wilke, Senior Vice President of Consumer Business at Amazon, does a great job the critical difference between these two: “A one-way door is a place with a decision if you walk through, and if you don’t like what you see on the other side, you can’t get back. You can’t get back to the initial state. A two-way door, you can walk through and can see what you find, and if you don’t like it, you can walk right back through the door and return to the state you had before.”

Two-way door decisions are reversible and therefore require less vetting. As Wilkes says, “Why would we need anything more than the lightest weight approval process for those two-way doors?” What applies for Amazon as an organization applies to people as well. Why worry too much if you can walk it back?

As a CEO, I encourage my employees to make two-way door decisions. This may take the form of releasing a software enhancement that can be rolled back, or piloting a program within a single department before implementing company-wide.

One-way door decisions require more thought and buy-in since they cannot be undone. Both decision types have the potential to yield great results, but one-way decisions risk greater repercussions if they are wrong and take greater care and vetting.

If fear of failure is hindering your organization’s ability to innovate or your personal ability to take risk in your life, consider using the concept of two-way door decision making. It is a safe, simple, smart way to open up your employees or yourself to the risk of failure, and, more importantly – the risk of success.

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Who Do You Spend Time With?

Jason Beans — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 17:36:00 +0000

I have spent hours thinking about and challenging this idea in my mind, but it keeps reproving itself to me over and over. Consider who you spend the most time with, and most likely you are the average of those five friends in all areas of life:

Belief System
Philosophy  
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Hobbies
Intelligence
Income and/or Net Worth

This has been a part of my personal philosophy for years. Friends that drain my energy or add no value to my life, I phase out. People that energize me, inspire me, instill peace and joy, I try to spend more time with.

Take a look at your own life. Do you have meaningful conversations about things that matter with the people you spend time with? Does your own code of ethics mesh with your peer group? Do you learn and become better from talking to your friends? Do you have political confrontations with those around you? Do you have FUN with your friends? If you answer any of those questions in the negative, then you should really consider your personal sphere of influence. Life is too short to be surrounded by negativity. Why spend it with people who don’t make you a better person?

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Growing a Company Montessori-Style

Jason Beans — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 15:50:00 +0000

I’ve been looking at schools for my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter and I was floored by the quality of education available today.

One school, , really stood out from the rest. It’s fostering a science and culture of learning that is unbelievable. The days I remember of mindless memorization and hours of sitting bored and frustrated listening to lectures are no more. While I wish I could relive my school years, I realize, especially after my recent Montessori school visit, that I’m reliving those years every day alongside our Company’s 200+employees. I discovered that what we’ve been fostering for the past 14 years within the Company’s culture is based heavily on the Montessori method. Here are six common philosophies we share to develop the human potential:
Management Style: “With freedom comes responsibility,” that’s the principle I heard students and teachers state many times. Students are expected to behave in a proper manner in order to continue to have the freedom they love. 911�Թ� employees have freedom, but with that comes responsibility. We foster an objective-based leadership model rather than a task-based management style. We define the top corporate goals, the unit chooses their top goals (aligned to corporate goals) and the individual can set their own goals (aligned to team goals). By defining KPIs (key performance indicators), the teams and individual can find and execute quality improvement projects to improve their KPIs.

Focus on Strengths:  Montessori encourages children to pursue their interests. They have freedom in sports, art, music and even learning topics. Equally impressive was that classes are divided by learning style. Similarly, 911�Թ� is a strengths-based culture. When a new employee arrives, the first thing we do is give them the Strength Finder and Predictive Index assessments to determine their top five strengths and a book to reinforce those strengths. We then design a “flight plan” for each employee to help them find what they love to do and have an aptitude for so everyone can achieve their life goals.

Huddles: Montessori calls it something different, but ultimately the end goal is the same. Kids get together themselves on a daily or weekly basis. They can talk about what is going on, where they are stuck and ask each other for guidance. The team helps each other and holds each other accountable. At 911�Թ�, we get together at the same time every morning in our teams, discuss our daily happenings, gain support if needed, and keep one another on task.

Variable Roles: The kids are put in positions where they need to be comfortable stretching themselves and leaning on others, and in situations where they are leaders, helping other children. Much like life, 911�Թ�’s Situational Leadership training and mentor program also mirror this reality. After all, a person must be comfortable helping others and/or asking for help in order to achieve their maximum potential.

Support: I noticed many systems in place for positive validation.  The children look out and root for each other. They are trying to climb mountains together, not play King of the Hill. Similarly, we have Company “High Fives,” “911�Թ� Rock Stars” and “Catches of the Month” to recognize employees for their professional achievements and milestones.

Ownership: I had the privilege to see some of the 6th–8th grade presentations to prospective parents; they were impressive and spoke volumes about their education. All you had to do was look at the children delivering these presentations to know this method of education is stellar. This is why I’ve always been an advocate for exposing our team to clients, with each unit being responsible for providing their own client tour. People don’t need the CEO or sales person telling them how good we are, they can see it with their own eyes.

911�Թ� has an amazing team and dynamic culture, one that has been written about in business publications and case studies. Over the years, I’ve been a dedicated student to the art of building a thriving Company culture. Yet who knew all I had to do was go to a different kind of school to get what I needed. Had I attended a Montessori school, I would have saved a lot of time, avoided a lot of mistakes, and honed my skills earlier on in life. At least now I can say I recognize the difference and want better for my daughter and for every employee at 911�Թ�.

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“We” vs “Me” Teams

Jason Beans — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 18:25:00 +0000

Every group of people is really just a tribe. Some are larger or smaller than others. Companies, countries, sports teams. They all function as tribes. When the nuclear disaster struck in Japan, again it struck me how much better their society functioned during a time of crisis than we did during Katrina.

on how people reacted. The main difference I notice between effective and ineffective tribes can be boiled down to a “we” mentality vs. a “me” mentality. The exact same word, with one letter flipped upside down and the meaning could not be more different.

In great tribes, the good of the team comes first. You will hear a lot of “we” and “us” not a lot of “I”, “my” and “me.” Notice this in life. Watch sports teams that overachieve. Look at societies with lower crime and better systems. Look at companies that are changing the world. Look at units that are humming. Look at families that seem to really enjoy each other. My bet is you will start to see the same pattern I have.

Pay attention to this in your own life. Do you claim all the glory? Take all the credit? That erodes trust and creates unhealthy competition amongst those close to you. Share the glory, credit and results to create trust. This encourages people to want to work with you and be around you again.

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Move Slow at First to Move Fast

Jason Beans — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 04:26:00 +0000

I was talking to someone the other day who conducts leadership training. Once a year, she goes out with a team to work on a training event at a large multi-national corporation.

She was saying that it is always a struggle to get the company to budget a little time to get the training team members engaged and aligned before starting. Everyone is so task based they want to jump right in. Even though she has worked with many of these people a year earlier, she still wants some time to re-engage, slowly rebuild trust, etc.

The expression she used is you have to “go slow to go fast.” If a team on a project is not connected, or does not trust each other or understand how their teammates work, the project is much less likely to be successful long term.

I was thinking about this. People mock the “teambuilding” exercises (like falling backwards into the arms of other team members), but there was a reason they were created (even if they have become a little contrived). If you think of a sports team in training camp, they re-bond each year. It applies to all team interactions.

We have spent a lot of effort making sure the connections are developed at 911�Թ�. Our Friday “toasts” are an informal place to gather and connect. We have only a few break rooms and entrances. We want people casually bumping into each other. When we do the coffee with the CEO (Beans with Beans), it is as much about the people in these sessions getting to know each other and other departments as it is about them getting to know me (and me getting to know them). There are hundreds of other examples of how we encourage these critical connections.

Why is this important? Every company needs the connections where people across departments work with each other fearlessly (go to each other directly and freely) without having to go to their boss or go to the other person’s boss to get things done. This type of bureaucracy indicates a breakdown in the process or culture somewhere. Speed slows down. Redundancy is added to the company. Details are lost in multi-party communication. People need to feel safe being open, even if something is wrong in their unit they want to fix. Without trust, people hide flaws, destroying the team, the product and the culture, which hurts everyone. The teams where people can openly communicate and openly look at and solve problems are the superstar companies.

So – move slow to move fast. Get to know your co-workers. Really know them. Their strengths and preferences, and even areas of weakness. It is fun and makes your team stronger in the long run.

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Achieve as a Team

Jason Beans — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 22:28:00 +0000

Congrats to the Dallas Mavericks!

This was a team with non-stars or aging stars. They had less physical talent than the Miami Heat.

They were not expected to win. Yet, they did. They moved the ball well. Played great defense. Looked out for each other.

The better overall team beat the team with better individual talent! Another life lesson.

Nothing you want to achieve in life can be done on your own. Someday, sit down with your life goals and really think about it. It always takes others by your side to achieve anything great. It takes a team, pulling together.

This is the reason one of 911�Թ�’s core values is Achieve as a Team. I expect to change the world, and it cannot be done without a great team around me, driving to the same goal.

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Being Treated Fairly – It’s Nature

Jason Beans — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 01:48:00 +0000

Here is a fascinating thing I’ve learned about human nature. People often would rather be treated fairly, but worse, than being treated unevenly but better overall. What you talking about Jason?

There is a famous study done of animals showing how perceived fair treatment is ingrained into nature. This experiment was done with monkeys to demonstrate how strong this instinct is in nature. to see it.

Basically, they gave monkeys food if the monkeys gave them a pebble. It started with a cucumber. A piece of cucumber for a pebble is great trade for a monkey. They cannot eat the pebble and they like cucumber. The monkeys were very happy to make that trade. The world was good.Then they started mixing in a perceived better food, a grape, some of the times. All of a sudden, the ones who got the cucumber refused to take it. They would throw it back at the researcher. They were very angry when they got the cucumber instead of the grape.

The Evil E’s (Ego, Envy and Entitlement), are a part of nature. Who knew?

That is just a silly animal Jason. People do not behave that way. We are too smart.

It happens with people too. I remember in a past office, we had flex time for the operations team, because a lot of people liked to work the early shift to be home when their children got home from school. Still, we needed decent coverage from 3-5 pm (when clients would call with rush orders and mail needed to go out). There was supposed to be a rotation of people who covered the “normal” shift (not the early shift). That way people got the benefit of the early shift some weeks at least. There was a lot of infighting about who had to do it. Morale was bad. It took constant management of the situation. I remember the manager canceled flex time and made everyone work the normal shift and all of a sudden the fighting went away and people were, on the whole, happier.

I was amazed. Overall, the team was no better off, and was actually worse off most weeks, but they were happier because it was “even.” We can see it every day in life. Picture sports stars. They love their huge contract until someone gets a little more, then they pout and hold out and lose money and reputation over a “perceived” inequity.

This is a good lesson for managers. If there are perceived differences in the equity of a situation to the team, then morale will drop. It is human nature. You need to explain the “why” of the perceived inequality or eliminate the inequity. If you as a manager expect the reaction to happen, because it is ingrained and natural, it is less stressful and you can plan for the issue and address it. This is a good lesson for all of us. Knowing this reaction is ingrained in our nature can help us make intelligent decisions and not let base destructive instincts take over. Getting a cucumber sometimes and a grape sometimes is a lot better than getting nothing. Do not let Envy and Entitlement make your life worse overall. If someone else gets something, if it does not hurt you or change your situation in any way, do not worry about it. Be happy for that person, and maybe figure out what you can do to achieve more of your goals in life.

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4 Basic Human Needs for Happiness

Jason Beans — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 12:07:00 +0000

What makes us happy? At work? As a consumer? In life? Happiness likely has the same triggers in most any part of your life.

It’s a fascinating topic that can take a lifetime to master. Many companies desire a “great customer experience,” but they really put no effort into learning what makes a great experience.

I’ll argue that a great customer experience is a happy one. The same things that make us happy in life, will work when applied to a customer experience. There are a lot of businesses out there that try their best to make their customer experience a happy one by making their products , trying their best to look after their customers’ by forcing their wants and needs.

I’ll also argue that a company or team of people cannot “fake” who it is for long. Using 911�Թ� as an example, I don’t think we can create a consistently amazing (aka “happy”) experience for our customers without a great culture where our employees are “happy.” How are we going to systematize and scale “faking” a happy experience? It isn’t even worth figuring out. I would rather have authentically happy employees serving customers to make them authentically happy.

I often study other superstar companies to see what they are doing well that we can learn from and possibly bring into 911�Թ�. Zappos is a company I’ve been exposed to and have enjoyed learning about. Why? They seem to be as fanatical about culture and customer experience as I am. This was an online “shoe” company that became HUGE due to their customer experience. Shoes? Online? What could be more boring? How can you stand out from thousands of websites selling shoes?

The CEO of Zappos, Tony Hsieh has made and lost a fortune before Zappos and has discovered it has to be about more than money. He spends a lot of his time focused on employee and customer happiness. When I heard him speak, he outlined the four basic human needs to be happy:

1. Perceived Progress
2. Perceived Control
3. Relatedness
4. Connection to a Larger Vision

This really got me thinking. I spend time, and encourage my managers to spend time, making sure our team and customers are engaged in all 4 levels to ensure a positive happy experience. It takes work to think it through and systematize it throughout a culture, but the long term benefits are worth it.

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