Building Office Culture with a Morning Meeting

By Andrew Propst, an EO Idaho member and president of Park Place Property Management, CRMC

Culture is the most important factor in a successful business. Company culture reflects the beliefs, values, and behaviors of everyone in your workforce. It has a significant effect on the success of a business. Here at Park Place Property Management, we hold our values and culture as a top priority. As long as we hold true to those standards, our success is sure to follow.

We genuinely instill our principles and maintain our high energy culture by living our core values on a daily basis. Every day begins with an upbeat meeting that brings together our staff of 30. The meeting is kicked off with a song of a team member’s choice accompanied by the music video displayed on the big screen as everyone files in. This gets the whole team engaged and puts them in the right mood to start a new day.

Everyone shares the responsibility of managing the morning meetings, and the team member in charge of running the meeting opens with a quote. This can be meant to give our staff something to think about, to inspire them or to just make them laugh. We then continue with “kudos.” Recognition is a huge aspect of feeling valued, and we make a point to ensure everyone gets the recognition they deserve. At this time, we have an open floor to publicly acknowledge and thank those who helped out or went above and beyond the day before.

After spreading around some “feel-good vibes,” we open the floor to any issues or questions we have regarding customers, policies or procedures. Everyone gets a chance to collectively get on the same page and feel comfortable discussing any concerns.

Once everything has been addressed, we proceed into our lesson of the day. Every meeting should have a key takeaway with everyone leaving with a fresh idea or purpose. If there is nothing to take away from our meetings, then there is no point in having them. As an office, we are given a book to read that can be applied to our company. The meeting coordinator must read one chapter from the book and give a brief summary. During the lesson, they must answer questions such as: “What inspired you in this chapter?” and “What is the Park Place takeaway?” “How could we use what you learned in our daily routine?” This gives all of our staff something to reflect on and work towards as the day rolls on.

As the lesson comes to an end, we close the meeting with an activity and a “closing video.” The activity depends on the day of the week. For example, Monday’s serve as our team building day, where we’ll play any game that is selected by the coordinator. We’ve played everything from Jeopardy to Charades and Bingo. This brings our team closer together and continues to be a huge culture builder. Then, we exit the meeting by either listening to another pump-up song or watching a funny YouTube video chosen by the person in charge.

The only way to successfully create a culture you want to work in every day is to list what your values are and live them. Create team-oriented events and activities on a daily basis that will bring your company values to life. The “vibe” your office will have as a result will naturally bring about your business success.