6 Ways to Change a Business Culture: Pt. 1, Set a Vision

This is part 1 of a 6 part series by RSC's CEO & Managing Director, Bob Stephen. In this series, Bob discusses six ways to change a business culture.

One night, as I was driving through the mountains, it started snowing.  Driving conditions went downhill quick as the storm progressed to a full-out skier’s dream blizzard.  Powder stacked up fast – both on the road and on my windshield.  Thankfully, I was able to pull behind a snowplow.  By keeping my sights on that vehicle’s lights, I was able to (very slowly!) reach my destination.


Running a business can feel like driving through a blizzard sometimes.  If you can’t see where you’re going, it’s hard to set your tires on the right course.  At least, unless there’s a snowplow to follow.  Thankfully, there are 3 easy steps to make sure your business is on track.

3 Easy Steps to Set a Vision and Align your Company

Paint your picture

Learning how to use the Painted Picture concept is absolutely vital to setting up your vision.  In fact, it has to happen first.  I highly recommend you read our earlier post regarding a painted picture before finishing this article. 

In any case, you have to be able to describe where you are and where you’re going if you want people to join you on the journey.  Even if it’s just you, you need to know where you’re going so that you don’t get lost on the way there.

Develop core values

Once you know where you’re going, you need to know how you’re getting there.  You need to know your core values.  For ours, we use the acronym TIPS: Transparency, Integrity, Professionalism, and Straightforwardness. 

While you don’t have to use an acronym, you will want to create your own set of core values. We have chosen to use an acronym to assist with memorization.  Core values help align current and future staff to the same path so we can move forward together.  Nobody wonders where we’re going, how we’ll get there, or what creates success.  We already know, because we can fall back on those core values to keep us aligned and unified. 

Answer: Why, How, and What?

Once you know where you’re going and how to get there, you’ve only got to ask yourself three more questions. 

• “Why?”
• “How?”
• “What?”

We follow Simon Senik's adage to answer these three questions.  

• Why: We are passionate about meeting the needs of our clients by providing state of the art, easy to use, and modern IWMS solutions.
• How: We study technologies, review and assess for applicability, and work to embrace and incorporate the appropriate solutions.
• What: We provide the results for medium to large companies to help manage their assets through Fast, Efficient, Professional IWMS Tools and Consulting.

By answering these question we align our team. Gone are the days where our team struggles with direction or clarity.  Instead, we’re able to quickly discuss Why, How, and What we are doing and gain consensus.  Because of these questions we know why we need to get this done, how we are going to do this, and finally, what we are doing.

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