Take 5: How to Reinforce Culture to Your Team
By Ryan Ford

Ryan Ford directly addresses camera: 
     Having a hard time defining your culture? If so, it’s time to figure it out and then reinforce your culture to your team. I’m Ryan Ford, vice president and managing broker of Watson Realty Corp. in Palm Coast. Let’s take five minutes to talk about ways to bolster your culture and ensure your team is on the same page.

Our culture is that our office is a safe, family environment. When I took over the office about two years ago, we defined our vision, which then played into our culture. That’s so important. To reinforce your culture, you must be able to define it. Our office vision is to maintain a warm office environment that fosters positive relationships and successful results. We recite that at the beginning of every office meeting. The idea is that we may bicker like a family does. But ultimately we support each other. 

I know it’s working because we have more attendance at our office meetings than in the past. We also can measure the success through the increased engagement in community events, family fun nights and weekly office meetings. We had one recent event where we had almost 100 percent participation.

Once you define your vision, you have to support it. Here are some ways we’re doing that. First, we support our community. We schedule office-wide events where we clean up the beaches, build a Habitat home and so on. Engagement in office activities reinforces the culture. 

Next, we celebrate each other’s successes. We send gifts to an agent’s family member who just had a baby. We go out as a team and celebrate seminal events and birthdays. Remember, it starts at the top. Even if I’m having a bad day, I have to be positive and supportive. I have to be at these events. The biggest mistake a leader can make is to be absent and not get to know the people who the work with.  You should know your agents, employees, their families, the names of their pets and kids. But, don’t pry. Having a general interest in your people means that these conversations happen naturally because you are authentic and working on the relationships.

Remember, you can’t force an office culture. You can’t tell people that you’re the “fun” office but never schedule fun events. You can’t say you have a “family” atmosphere and fail to bring your team together to celebrate and support each other. 

Obviously, hiring the right agents, those who fit your office culture, is vital. I hire one out of every 20 agents I interview. I am very very picky. In order to get hired here, you have to be the right fit. You have to be a positive person and you have to like working as a team. Some questions I ask in the interview process are, have you worked in a team environment in the past? What did you like about it? What didn’t you like? I also ask, how the culture in your last workplace was? If a potential hire is coming from a culture that wasn’t that strong, I can gauge how easily that person will adapt by talking about whether they hesitant to jump into a culture like ours. Or they will easily fit in.

Finally, you have to be a hands-on manager to make culture work. I don’t just mean attending events and meetings either. You can’t ask them to do things you personally would not do. I’ve helped agents knock on doors and walk communities. I will go out and help an agent by attending an inspection if they aren’t able to do so. The truth is, I learn something from my agents every single day. If they can learn something from me; then it’s a win-win.