10 Signs of Unhealthy and Losing Cultures

The Bob Principle

The Bob Principle comes from John Maxwell’s book Winning With People: Discover the People Principles that Work for You Every Time.  In essence, it teaches that if Bob has a problem with Charlie, and Bob has a problem with Stan, and Bob has a problem with Steve, Bob is the problem.

I thought about the Bob Principle during the September 19th episode of ESPN’s College GameDay.  When addressing the challenges of the Florida Gators football program, Coach Nick Saban said, “Well, I think maybe the problem isn’t the coaches.  They’ve been through four coaches since (Steve) Spurrier and Urban Meyer, who both created a tremendous culture of winning there.”

Coach Saban elaborated, “And sometimes the fan base can just think oh we can show up and expect to win.  And not make the commitment to the program that you need to make to be able to continue to make the changes and investments that you need to make to keep up with changing times.  And things change.  They should have taken advantage of building better facilities when Urban Meyer was there.  Now, what’s their collective been like?  How have they adapted to this, you know, new model of college football?”

Then he concluded with the Bob Principle, “So, it’s not just the coaches. When you’ve been through four coaches and haven’t had the success, there’s something else that people should be looking at.”

Click the image below to see the full segment:

10 Signs of Unhealthy and Losing Cultures

From Coach Saban’s words, I gleaned ten signs of an unhealthy and losing culture.

1. Leaders in unhealthy and losing cultures mis-diagnose problems and can’t properly evaluate reality.
2. Leaders in unhealthy and losing cultures do not recognize and seize opportunity.
3. Leaders in unhealthy and losing cultures have unrealistic expectations.
4. Leaders in unhealthy and losing cultures refuse to change.
5. Leaders in unhealthy and losing cultures refuse to invest resources into the organization.
6. Leaders in unhealthy and losing cultures have antiquated systems.  They don’t keep up.
7. Leaders in unhealthy and losing cultures are not raising up new leaders.
8. The leaders they do have are not aligned, attuned, or effective.
9. Leaders in unhealthy and losing cultures experience constant dysfunction and instability.
10. Leaders in unhealthy and losing cultures have poor results.

A Helpful Resource

If any of these signs reflect your organization, I want to help you.  In conjunction with one of my content partners, I created the following new checklist to help you identify ways you can improve your leadership:

• 7 Steps To A Winning Culture Checklist

You can download them by clicking HERE or on the image below.  This resource will make you a better leader.

Now a special request.  This is a complimentary resource.  Therefore, if you download them, make special note of the ads on the pages you will see.  If any interest you, please click the images and learn more about their products.  Thank you as this helps cover the cost of production.

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