The entire culture that RSC has built started when we really focused on the Painted Picture. When we initially presented our vision to our staff, I noticed that my staff either agreed whole-heartedly with the vision, or they disagreed and had concerns.

The staff that believed in the vision helped RSC to grow and become closer. They wanted to move forward because the vision gave them the clarity, energy, and strategies to do so successfully. Within the group of people that disagreed with the vision, I noticed two factions: the first was the people who didn’t believe in the vision, and the second was the people who simply needed more context to understand the vision. We helped those employees who couldn’t align themselves with the vision into another job at another company. We knew, like other companies before us, that we wanted to change how we operated our at-work family, so to speak. This kind of change will always end up in some high initial turnover rates. A great example of this is Tony Hsieh’s (CEO of Zappos) move to Holacracy. He gave those employees who were not ready to make the change into Holacracy a choice to either adopt the principle or leave with $2,000 and the past week’s pay. Read about his changes to his company culture and how he helped those employees who weren’t in accordance with the vision where they would feel more comfortable.

The employees that simply needed more context to understand the vision and what it was trying to accomplish. I provided several one-on-one meetings with those staff members. After a handful of meetings, once they understood where the company was going with the vision, realized that they were able to align their ideas with the Painted Picture.

Once the entire company was on board with the Painted Picture and company vision, people found that they have greater freedom and efficiency.

Because the staff is no longer bogged down with trying to guess where the company is going, they don’t have to second guess each and every action, nor wonder whether or not they are doing the right task. Instead, they know where the company is headed, what they need to do, and how to get there. It also frees their time to do the job at hand instead spending time wondering whether or not they are on the right track. The Painted Picture also facilitates communication, because employees know how, why, and about what to talk. They don’t have to guess the topics or the how-to’s, creating more freedom and less politics in inter-office communication. We, as a company, are able to get together and talk about things very quickly and efficiently.

The result of this freedom and open communication is that we as a company are more efficient. Meetings take half as long as they once used to because we’re able to communicate better. For example, project management meetings used to last all day; they’re now about 5 hours long. Mid-management meetings used to be 3-4 hours long; they’re now 60-70 minutes long.

Even though the meetings are shorter, we are able to complete just as much, if not more, work. We’re able to address many issues in just a few sentences before making a decision to move forward. This is due to the fact that we all know the direction that we need to go, thanks to the Painted Picture. We’re also better equipped to assess strengths and weaknesses of our team, and how those fit in with the company’s vision. In that way, we’re able to encourage continued growth in employees’ strong areas and help them find other, better options for strengthening weaker areas of performance.

Overall, having our painted picture has provided a huge amount of freedom and drastically increased our efficiencies in the company. That’s why, when I get comments about how amazing our company culture is, I can’t help but smile. It has taken a lot of work to get where we are, but it has been worth it.