But when I walked in the door, it felt a little too much like a hole in the wall—neglected and dirty. There were crumbs on the table, the chairs felt sticky, and trash sat visibly on the floor. And I won’t begin to describe what the bathroom looked like.

It was clear they believed their food was so good that it didn’t matter what the rest of the place looked like. To them, it was part of their charm. To me, it just felt gross. Even though the food was good, it was hard to enjoy it. It was a good reminder for me that everything speaks. When you walk into a business, you’re processing so much more than the product you’re purchasing. You’re impacted by the aesthetic, the cleanliness, the colors, the tone of the person talking to you, and their personal appearance. All of these things are affecting your impression of the organization.

Small things often communicate something much bigger.

Benjamin Franklin famously said, “The handshake of the host affects the taste of the roast.” In other words, a positive or negative first impression can impact a person’s whole experience. If the restaurant is dirty, it’s going to be hard to enjoy their good food. On the other hand, if the restaurant is pristine and the waiter is especially hospitable, the food may even seem better than it really is!

If everything speaks, what are you missing? What are the small things you have overlooked that are communicating something bigger?

In a business, it’s not just about the quality of your product. It’s the way your customer service representatives answer the phone and the speed at which they respond to emails. It’s your team’s attentiveness to guests and hospitality toward everyone who walks through the door. These small things communicate care.

At a church, we can make sure the music is great, the sermon is good, and the production is perfect, but if a guest feels ignored by the person sitting next to them, those other things will be overshadowed. It’s not just about how the service goes or how the church looks, it matters that someone feels welcomed.

At home, you may be great at giving words of affirmation to your spouse, but you often forget to put your dirty coffee cup in the dishwasher in the morning. It’s a small thing, but when you remember to do it, it communicates care. You’re not leaving extra work for your spouse to do for you.

Just to be clear, this blog isn’t about being nit-picky. We should be gracious with one another. We shouldn’t obsess over the small things, but we shouldn’t ignore them either. Small things really can communicate big things.

I’ve heard it said,

“What you’re doing speaks so loudly, I can’t hear what you’re saying.”

This week, ask yourself what small pieces of your organization have you overlooked? Work to identify the little things in your personal and professional life that are speaking. Are they saying what you want them to say? If not, it’s time to help the little things in your life reflect what you believe.

It was a study-abroad organization. In other words, we created a global travel company that was based on asking people to use their disposable income to take trips to interesting places around the world. And just to clarify, this was started in the middle of the Great Recession, which is now considered the longest period of economic decline since the Great Depression. I distinctly remember people telling us we were crazy.

I’m going to be honest with you: It never occurred to me that it was a bad time to start a company. Want to know the craziest part? The business was successful! As Pearl Buck famously said, “The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible—and achieve it, generation after generation.”

I’m glad I didn’t know any better.

Twelve years later, we are living in the midst of a pandemic. It has been a hard year. Our social lives have been dismantled, our communities feel more divided than ever, and our economy has been uncertain. This season has impacted all of us psychologically, emotionally, and financially. It’s drawn many people to fear. It seems like every week I talk to more people who are basing important decisions on this fear. Surrounded by pundits and prognosticators, they are more focused on their circumstances than their calling. However, this might be the exact time to face your fear head on. I believe there are real benefits to taking on something challenging during a time of adversity. There are benefits to being a recent college graduate at the start of an economic recession, like I was in 2008.

There are even benefits to being a little naive about the potential pitfalls of trying something new.

Now, I’m not going to give you the five steps to pursuing your calling in a pandemic, but I do have one piece of advice for you: turn down the noise. If your newsfeed is keeping you from doing what you need to do, exercise some willful ignorance and turn off your notifications for a while. Sometimes, it’s better to not know any better. Consider this question: What is something you know you need to do, but you’re afraid to do it right now?

Maybe you’ve said something like this:

I’m going to get married once I get this business off the ground.

I’ll have kids once I can afford the perfect house for our family.

I’ll start writing when I can get a little more free-time during the day.

I’m going to start saving money when I get my next raise.

I’ll start giving when I have a cushion in my bank account.

Maybe it’s time to take that first step. There’s never going to be a perfect time to do anything.

If you’re waiting on the perfect time to do something, you will never do what you were created to do.

I believe there is someone reading this today who needs this reminder. It may be time for you to try something new in spite of your present circumstances.

Many are thrilled with the outcome, while millions of others are disappointed—some of them devastated. However, it’s worth noting that some of the ones celebrating this election were crushed in despair by the outcome four years ago. Disappointment. Devastation. Despair. Both Republicans and Democrats are guilty of having a fatalistic mentality when their candidates lose. We all have this tendency to be overcome by a sense of foreboding, bracing ourselves for what we believe to be the worst possible scenario under a new administration. Republicans react this way when a Democrat wins, and Democrats react this way when a Republican wins.

Just to be clear, I am making this observation as someone who has worked in politics and believes it’s important to be an active participant in the political process. Before you give me the lecture on how important this election is, I’ll remind you that I’ve worked on a presidential campaign, served on the staff of a U.S. Congressman, and spent time helping many others running for office. But far too many people have made politics their religion. This myopic focus on politics causes some to stake so much on it that when it doesn’t go their way, they fall apart. Their hope evaporates, and their happiness erodes.

C.S. Lewis wisely said,

“Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose.”

In many ways, 2020 has exposed this tendency in all of us. Maybe it’s not politics for you, but it’s something else you’ve hitched your happiness to that can be taken away from you.

People who have placed their identities in their jobs have lost them.

People who have rested on the stability of their assets have seen them erode.

People who have found satisfaction in their spouses felt the stresses of 2020 threaten to break them apart.

People who found joy in their social calendars saw them obliterated.

People who found security in their health felt it evaporate in the face of a new disease.

Whether it's an election, a relationship, a job, a status, an economic state, or even freedom itself, we should not place our hope in things that can be taken away from us. It is like trying to build a house on shifting sand.

We should not place our hope in things that can be taken away from us.

Ultimately, this is not a post about politics or an election result. Moreso, it’s a reminder to me, and to each of us, to audit the things we stake our lives on. Don’t misunderstand me; these things—an election, our relationships, our jobs, our economic situations—are important. But they can’t be the fixture of our hope, our faith, and our trust. Why? Because they are all things that can change. So then where do we place our hope?

For me, it’s my faith. If everything in my life falls apart, this is one thing I can count on that will not change. My challenge for you today is to make sure you’re placing your faith, hope, and trust in something that will not disappoint you.

I believe everyone needs to be able to answer this question:

What is something that you can stake your life on that will never change?

It’s important to prioritize building a positive culture for your team, even when other pressing matters are vying for your attention.

The concept of culture is a topic I come back to because of questions I’m frequently asked by leaders. I find that people want something tangible and tactical they can do to enhance their culture. I’ve previously explained that culture creators and culture carriers are positive forces who can help build and maintain the culture of your team. But today I’m going to talk about people on the other end of the spectrum—the people who crush your culture.

Will Felps, professor at Rotterdam School of Management in the Netherlands, designed a real-life bad apple experiment to see how one bad team member could affect the performance of the rest of a team. He divided college students into small groups and assigned them a task to complete together. What they didn’t know was that some groups had a bad apple planted on their team—a hired actor who was consciously a downer, a jerk, or a slacker. The study found that the groups with these bad apples performed 30-40% worse than their counterparts. It gets worse. They didn’t just perform poorly, but some of the other members of the group took on the traits of the bad apple. A group with a downer would become more pessimistic as a whole. A group with a jerk would produce more jerks. A group with a slacker would make the rest of the team apathetic.

On the whole, the experiment confirmed that one person can crush the culture of an entire team.

Some of you might be thinking about a person on your team right now. Maybe this is discouraging because you aren’t in a position to remove that person from your team. I have some good news. The experiment conducted by Felps produced one outlier that should give us hope. One group who had an actor playing a jerk was still able to push through to complete the assigned task well. In this group, there was another team member who was a strong leader. Whenever the jerk said something negative, the stronger leader quickly diffused the situation and reminded the team of their collective goal. As a result, the rest of the group chose to follow this leader rather than the bad apple.

So here’s the moral of the story: If there is a culture crusher on your team and you have the power to get rid of them, do it. Stop putting off the tough conversation. Pull the plug for the sake of your team. But not all of us have this kind of power. If you have a culture crusher on your team and you can’t get rid of them, choose to be the leader that your team needs. Be the positive force in your organization. Be the bright spot by reminding your team of your collective vision.

As Martin Luther King Jr. said,

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.”

Don’t let one bad apple ruin the whole bunch!

Personally, I’m very excited about family changes in the next couple of weeks, as we’re expecting the arrival of our second child any day now. But I’m also excited about a professional accomplishment. For the second year in a row, out of all of the small businesses in Atlanta, ADDO was named the #1 Best Place to Work! This award is far more special to me than most others.

Here’s the truth: many business awards are based on how well your application was written or if you have a political connection with a member of the selection committee. The Best Places to Work awards are different. These are decided after a third-party organization conducts anonymous surveys of all employees in your business, and then makes the section based on objective and quantifiable metrics. After we won this award last year, I told you that one of the keys to our company culture at ADDO is that we don’t buy cheap toilet paper. In other words, we invest in the small things that show our team we care about them.

Today, I want to share three tactics we’ve focused on during this COVID season that helped make ADDO the best place to work in Atlanta in 2020. These principles will help any person trying to create a positive culture on any team—for your company, for your church, for your community, or even for your family.

1. Transparency:

Many leaders focus only on positivity painting a picture of a brighter future. While those elements are essential, they only help after a leader has defined reality. Said another way, you’ve got to be honest about the situation.

When the pandemic hit, we gathered our team, talked about our financial position, outlined the worst case scenario, and discussed “if this, then that” situations. Too many leaders are afraid of transparency. They are afraid that if they share too much that it will backfire on them. They fear that if the budget is tight, people may grow anxious. Or they worry that in a season of plenty people may feel entitled to a bigger piece of the pie. It’s not that there aren’t potential pitfalls of being transparent. But the benefits to your culture far outweigh the risks. Transparency builds trust, and trust is crucial to healthy culture.

Transparency builds trust.

2. Support:

During this unique season, we explored ways to support each of our team members in a personalized way. As a small organization, I understand it’s easier for us to do this well. The larger the organization, the more challenging it is to support individuals in a personal way. But the reality remains that different people need different things.

For each of our full-time employees, we provide a flexible spending benefit they can put toward what they uniquely need—healthcare, childcare, professional development, or an opportunity to give to a charity they care about. But there are other ways to care for your team members. If you’ve ever had more than one kid, you know your children are different and, therefore, need a different kind of care. Some need words of affirmation while others need more direction. The same is true of different people on your team.

3. Purpose:

This year, we’ve intentionally reminded our team why we do what we do as often as we can. During COVID, a lot of companies threw culture out the window, but at ADDO, we doubled down on it. In times of crisis, culture matters more, not less. When your family faces tragedy, you have to dig in rather than pull back. When your church walks through a tough season, it’s important to remind your members why you exist and what you’re working toward. When your business hits another obstacle, it’s even more important to connect your team’s work to its larger purpose.

In times of crisis, culture matters more, not less.

If this COVID season has distracted you from building a positive culture, it’s time to reorient your focus on what matters. You might be surprised to find that spending more time investing in your team members often increases performance and impacts your company’s bottom line.

Over the last three weeks, I’ve talked about the importance of purpose, perspective, and process, and today, I’m going to unpack persistence, which may be the most important key. Before we go any further, let me be clear—persistence is not fun. Persistence means pressing on in the face of difficulty and opposition. If there is no difficulty, there is no need to be persistent.

I knew this principle was important, but it became more clear to me a few years ago when I led our team through one of ADDO’s most difficult seasons.

At the time, there were three senior leaders who shared equal authority in running the company. I thought all of us had only minor differences in our sense of purpose and priority, but it turns out these differences were far deeper than I imagined. As time went by, we became like a dysfunctional family. For the sake of saving your time and my sanity, I’ll spare you the rest. It was a mess. Eventually, I had the tough conversation necessary to make it right. One of the leaders left ADDO taking some of our team with him, and I assumed the role I am in today. This was a difficult transition for our team, and as a leader, it was my responsibility to give our team a means to and reason to persist.

In a crisis, leaders must acknowledge the reality of the current situation and then inspire hope for a brighter future.

But, it needs to happen in that order. Offering hope without being honest about our present circumstances is fluffy and inauthentic. But only facts without hope can feel depressing. So as I led my team through this season, I had to find a balance of both. I needed to make it clear where we stood financially. I had to be honest about what would look different. But I also had to give them confidence that our company’s future was bright. Defining reality and giving hope helped my team not only persist but thrive. We came out of this tumultuous season and have never been more unified than we are today. And a few weeks ago, we were named the #1 Best Place to Work for small businesses in Atlanta for the second year in a row!

Persistence requires you to push through even in the darkest moments and believe in the hope of a brighter future. While slaves fled for their freedom on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman told them, “If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there's shouting after you, keep going. Don't ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.” Tubman knew that no matter what was behind them, their only chance at freedom was to keep moving forward. She knew that surrender meant death or a lifeless existence, but that moving forward meant a chance at life.

When there is a crisis, the best leaders challenge people to be persistent despite their present circumstances. And persistence fuels leaders to excel in the other three keys to leading in a crisis.

The best leaders challenge people to be persistent despite their present circumstances.

When you persist through any crisis, you strengthen your resolve for your purpose, you obtain a perspective that helps you face future challenges, and you refine your processes to make you and your organization better for the future.

I know this season is hard, but I hope this blog series has encouraged you as a leader. Don’t simply wish it away. Use this season to lean in and learn something valuable. You never know how it could impact your future as a company.

Over the past two weeks, I’ve unpacked two keys to leading a crisis: purpose and perspective. Purpose gives us the fuel we need to persevere through the most trying seasons, and perspective helps us see ourselves, one another, our work, and the obstacles we face through a clearer lens. Once you’ve identified your purpose and gained a proper perspective of the crisis in front of you, putting a good process in place keeps you focused on doing the right thing at the right time.

Which brings me back to this statement: Without a good process, success is difficult to achieve and nearly impossible to repeat.

This is a line from my book The Lens. However, my affinity for process is not something that comes naturally to me. Let me be blunt: Systems feel stifling to me—I want as much freedom as possible! For much of my career, I’ve rejected attempts to put processes in place. But through years of experience, I’ve learned that sustained success is impossible without process. In a season of crisis and constant change, processes are even more important.

Sustained success is impossible without process.

Because my bias is usually against process, I strategically surround myself with a few teammates who love routines, schedules, and systems. They help me and the rest of our team see what needs to be done, and when it needs to be done, in order to accomplish our collective purpose. Their processes give us tangible ways to move forward when the obstacles we face feel overwhelming.

These same ADDO team members are uniquely gifted in helping some of our clients put their own processes in place. About two years, we partnered with a local government agency to help them create consistency in customer care across their organization. (Those are two things you probably never expected to see together: Government and Customer Service!)

But the group we were hired by had a visionary leader who knew they had the potential to do more. Our team knew that we could inspire or motivate for short-term improvements, but the only way to move the meter over the long haul was to put a process in place. We developed training modules with tangible benchmarks for success. For example, when interacting with a customer, stick to your ABC’s: ask for clarification, be specific, and communicate solutions. It seems simple, but by giving a framework, a process, and real actions to emulate, we were able to help this group create and implement a process for effective customer care.

Think about this year for you. What processes do you need to put in place in your organization, in your church, or in your business? Maybe you need to tweak some existing processes to adapt to a new season. Work to value schedules, routines, and organized action plans.If you’re more like me and don’t naturally create systems for yourself and others, surround yourself with people who are gifted in this way.

Need some more inspiration? Remember this:

“Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.” –William A. Foster

Effective leadership comes as a result of effective processes. Remember the purpose, maintain the proper perspective, and put processes in place to keep the ship steady even during turbulent times.

Effective leaders connect their team’s work to its larger purpose, giving them the fuel they need to persevere through the most trying seasons. Purpose naturally leads us to our next key to leading in a crisis: perspective. Knowing your purpose clarifies your perspective of the storms you face in life.

Perspective is a powerful tool. Seeing the same thing from a different angle can completely change our experience of it. Consider an ocean view. It could appear never-ending from the top of a lighthouse. It could look like the home of a million creatures from the inside of a submarine, or it could appear dangerous from a helicopter with the waves rolling below. In each position, you are looking at the same ocean, but when your perspective shifts, your perception of the ocean, the sand, the water, and the waves changes.

The same is true when we face obstacles. We often feel like we’re at the bottom of a mountain, and the only way up is to scale a cliff. But if we would just walk along the base of the mountain for a while, we might find a trail to the top on the other side. It’s the same mountain, but your perspective of it is different. It will be challenging to climb, but you can climb it.

One of the ways you can lead well during a crisis is to constantly work to adjust your perspective.

This is especially important when building relationships with members of your team. One of our senior leaders at ADDO, Laura, tells the story of the first time she needed to have a difficult conversation with her team member Liz. Laura decided to confront her head-on, but it didn’t go well. Liz needed time and space to process this kind of critique, not a tense moment in the office. Laura later realized this reaction was part of Liz’s personality style. Had she had the proper perspective of Liz’s personality style at the time, this conflict could have been more productive.

This is why we’ve worked to create the ADDO Index. ADDO Index is a series of scientific assessments that reveals the different personality types and styles on your team. It’s designed to help you gain the right perspective of yourself and your team members. Knowing what motivates and energizes your team helps you lead them most effectively.

In his book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey says, “To change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions.”

In order to grow as leaders, we need to be willing to change the way we see ourselves, one another, our work, and the crises we face together.

This takes humility,  intentionality, and open communication with the members of your team.

This week, work to change your perspective of one aspect of your personal or professional life. It could be a difficult relationship. It could be an on-going project. Or it could be our current crisis—in the midst of global pandemic. Whatever you choose, commit to see it in a new way.

Our lives feel anything but normal as we navigate the challenges of social distancing, adjust to changes in our work, and try to find common ground in a nation that has never felt more divided.

I know. You’ve heard enough about our present crisis, but I think it’s important for us to think about it from a leadership perspective. How does leading look different in a crisis?

When we face the storms of life, the world conspires for us to move in a different direction, but having an anchor steadies us and keeps us from going off course. Over the next four weeks, we are going to unpack four of these anchors—or four keys—to leading well during a crisis season: purpose, perspective, process, and persistence. Today, I’m going to unpack the importance of knowing your purpose.

A man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder. Without the rudder, you can’t steer the ship. It will blow and rock and glide toward whatever destination the elements take it. Your purpose is like a rudder. It gives direction to your life. It’s the reason you get up in the morning, and it’s the thing that keeps your ship moving toward your final destination when it’s being beaten by waves on every side.

Do you know your purpose?

It’s easy to simply say your purpose is one specific personal or professional goal, but a purpose should be much bigger. Leadership guru Simon Sinek calls this your WHY. He explains that every single one of us has a WHY. It’s “the purpose, cause or belief that drives every single one of us.”

Your purpose is why you do what you do. Since I co-founded ADDO back in 2011, our purpose has remained consistent: Inspire people today to impact tomorrow. While that purpose seems aspirational, it's consistent across all of our work. We take our purpose seriously and work to help other companies do the same. It’s interesting to see how having a clear purpose plays out in the broader business world.

ADDO is currently working with an international food and beverage company who owns a number of different restaurant brands. Each brand promotes a different feel, offers different products, and caters to different audiences. But each of them are tied to this parent company’s bigger purpose: “To provide opportunities for remarkable people to make a lasting positive impact on our community and the lives of others.” As a collective company, their goal is to leave a lasting impact on the lives of others, and each of these different restaurant brands is able to live out this purpose in their own unique context and community of customers.

As a leader, not only do you need to know your purpose, but you need to know and champion the purpose of your organization. You need to be eager and ready to remind others on your team why they’re doing what they’re doing—especially in the midst of a crisis.

As a leader, not only do you need to know your purpose, but you need to know and champion the purpose of your organization.

So here’s my challenge to you this week: Help connect the work your team does to your organization’s larger purpose. Knowing “the why” makes their daily tasks meaningful and helps them face the obstacles new to their work in 2020 with confidence and courage.