What Fosters a Winning Company Culture? Support, Competition and Communication.
For those who may not know the whole story behind Triple Crown Consulting, it was built around the triple crown, which, in baseball, refers to the unofficial championship title achieved by a player who leads the league in batting average, home runs and runs batted in (RBI). There’s also, of course, the triple crown in horse racing, which refers to the unofficial championship title achieved by a horse that wins the three classic races: Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes. Whichever triple crown you may be most familiar with, these are rare, hardworking, incredibly skilled champions. And this is the inspiration behind the Triple Crown Consulting name.
Since the beginning, Triple Crown has been working hard on two important goals:
- To be the first and only resource businesses turn to when they’re in need of niche, highly skilled senior hardware and software technology talent.
- To be the best source for top-tier technology consulting opportunities.
All of us who work at Triple Crown are proud to support businesses that are architecting ingenuity, and we love partnering with top-tech talent who are expanding the possibilities of engineering, science and technology. Bottom line, we’re working with the best of the best on both sides of the equation.
But more than that, we are known for our high-energy, highly ambitious approach to matching talent to consulting opportunities. We work incredibly fast, but with a high degree of precision. Like our name implies – we are a workplace motivated to win, and we do so by championing the success of the people we do business with. We’re the type who strive to “put a ding in the universe,” as Steve Jobs would say.
These winning qualities are in our DNA – it’s our culture. But a great deal of practice, daily execution, coaching and drive goes into fueling who we are and also who we hire. We’re out to win for our consultants, our customers and each other internally. Misplaced ambition or priorities that don’t benefit all of the parties it takes to make a great match is not the makings of a championship team. And that’s just not us.
Creating a Company Culture That Competes – And Wins
Building a winning company culture starts first with identifying everyone’s strengths and weaknesses. It’s important to figure out what motivates people, and to make those factors part of the job. Renowned athletes don’t practice every day because they’re already great. They know that greatness comes from working hard, staying motivated and having goals. Figure out ways to enhance and showcase the strengths of the team while working to improve weaknesses – until eventually those weaknesses turn into strengths.
To identify strengths and weaknesses, as well as to assess the individual attributes of our team members, Triple Crown Consulting uses DISC assessments. This allows us to better understand personality types in order to create a winning combination of people. Not everyone responds the same to the different types of management styles that are out there. It’s important to know the environmental factors that will enable individuals to succeed and the team to win.
Support
The best example of our winning culture can be seen in the support system we have built into every layer of Triple Crown. What better way to learn to be great than from champions who have been practicing and performing at a high level for years? Support and access to “learn from the best” are key ingredients to our success. In fact, we have a proprietary Triple Crown “exchange program” where we mentor junior members from different teams and offices to cross-train and share best practices.
From blaring a team member’s theme song to celebrate offers, to sharing in a tremendous amount of energy and enthusiasm around smaller wins, like adding new talent to our network or clients to our portfolio of business, we are always supportive of one another. Positive vibes and a strong support system are important if you want a healthy and infectious company culture, like the one we have.
Competition
Competition makes everyone better! Regular, friendly competition raises morale and work effort. Not only are we competing every day to be the best within our own teams, but by competing internally we continue to raise the bar for our external competition, too.
For example, we have a “hot leads” contest and incentivize the team to go out and find new business and talent. These daily competitions tend to bring out the best in the office. Plus, we all love to win individual and team-awarded prizes for our efforts.
Communication
Healthy communication is vital to a winning company culture. Acknowledgement of progress and achievements, but also constructive feedback and suggestions on what to improve, are important to share. Having clearly defined escalation pathways for when issues arise as well as progressive road maps with markers and timelines means there is no confusion of where to go.
Communication can easily be one of those things that gets overlooked, but a winning team knows it’s how they continue to succeed. Take out all assumptions and substitute them with conversations – no matter how difficult they might be – and the team will buy into the plan and share in the common goals of the team.
Defining culture can be a challenge, but a thriving culture is easy to identify. You’ll notice an engaged and enthusiastic team excited to showcase why they excel. If you’re interested in growing your team in the hardware, software, and mechanical engineering space, email us at info@tripleco.com and let’s connect!