Page 20 - Make Work Great

Prologue

Choose to Choose
Are you now asking incredulously, “How can my actions infl uence
the culture?” The only reply is, “How can they not?” You need only
stand in the workplace and do something—anything. In the doing,
you will either demonstrate more of what has always been taught, or
you will demonstrate something different. Those around you—and
by extension, the culture itself—will be affected. Over time, both
will change.

So don’t ask yourself how you can influence the culture, but rather
how you already are infl uencing it. Are you consciously creating a
miniculture around yourself according to your own design, or are
you unwittingly training and retraining others to follow the negative
aspects of the broader environment? In other words, are you a ben-
efi ciary of precedent or a slave to it?
The choice is up to you, and the rest of this book is about choices
you can make that will make your workplace great. It’s about the
consistent practice of simple disciplines, habitual actions that convert
you from culture follower to culture builder. It’s about harnessing the
power of precedent to create a positive environment around you, one
of your own design. This is powerful stuff!
Before you start—before you even think about making any of those
choices—just be sure that your fi rst choice is to choose.

9