“We would rather suffer a few bad months than have this person hanging around!”

In the middle of an intense discussion amongst the leadership team members at MOVE on a rainy afternoon back in 2022, my Co-founder Justin Foo made a statement that reminded all of us to put culture first and not to be distracted by dollar amounts brought in by a superstar trainer.

The discussion ended with crystal clear understanding amongst us that culture was something that got defined over and over again through moments like this.

Interestingly after parting ways with the “superstar”, not only did the revenue of that particular branch not tank, it also sustained its revenue while achieving record breaking months shortly after!

Entrepreneurship is culture building

Look, there are 2 types of entrepreneurs out there. Which one are you? The first being someone that’s a lot more thoughtful towards how everything should be from day 1, including culture. The second type of entrepreneur is someone who wants to ensure sales and revenue targets are constantly being hit while saying “this culture thing… I’ll get to it when I have time!”

If you’re the first type of entrepreneur, you’ve gotten a strong head start. But bear in mind that culture on day 1 versus day 758 will take shapes in different forms. This doesn’t mean you will sway from your principles when it comes to culture building, but rather, you just get clearer about what you truly want. I’m saying this based on my experience building six personal training studios over the last four years. For example, with our studios number one to three, we emphasized teamwork heavily, and it definitely took us somewhere. But more recently, we have heavily instilled a leadership culture because we believe the definition of it is a lot more wholesome and it would take us further compared to the notion of teamwork. The term “Leadership” encapsulates leading oneself, leading a few around (without a title) and leading those under your care (having a title such as manager or team lead) which now allows us to break down every stage of it with what’s required, and teamwork is part of it.

Now if you’re the second type of entrepreneur who just wants to make sure sales targets are hit at all costs while thinking culture building is a “nice to have” and something for later, you can expect to pay the price later, emotionally and even financially. We tried delaying culture building with one of our new branches, thinking it would be ideal this time around to just let the team focus on getting their coaching hours up and revenue on point without overwhelming them with other non-revenue generating tasks. Surely, they got their income and revenue target up after months but we started to realize something. The team showed traits that weren’t culture fit. Talk about individualistic, short term thinking and lack of discipline, it was a stark contrast compared to other branches we built where we kickstarted our culture coaching rhythm from day 1. We then had to try hard getting the buy-in from team members of that particular branch to see the importance of culture building rhythms as part of their work which then resulted in a lot of friction along the way.

Why Culture Would Eat Strategy For Breakfast?

The phrase “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” is a renowned quote widely known amongst the world of management and entrepreneurship by the late Peter Drucker, a legendary management consultant, educator, and author. Drucker emphasized that regardless how well-conceived a company’s strategic plan might be, it will inevitably fail if the organization’s culture is not taken care of. This saying underscores the power of culture in driving the success or failure of a business.

How Do We Enculture Our Team At MOVE?

One of our partners Jason Foo was an ex pastor and he was the one that shed a different light on the big word “CULTURE”. He was very principle and philosophy based which could stem from his pastoring days. But rather than preaching what’s in the bible, he was extremely well versed in many principles and philosophies out there that have been proven over decades and also embraced by ordinary individuals doing extraordinary things. Think John Maxwell, Jim Collins and Simon Sinek.

He has established numerous culture coaching frameworks by pulling different teachings out there coupled with his experiences through work and life. More notably, he has created a 16-weeks “Breakthrough Huddle” that every single new team member must go through in a group setting.

And for any existing team member stepping up to a leadership role, a 1 on 1 “Leadership Coaching” with Jason is mandatory and the time frame of it can vary since it’s more of a personalized approach due to various hurdles that need timely resolution being new to the role.

But one thing I would like to stress is, do not make it easy for anyone to be hired. Because I believe “easy in is easy out” and I’ve seen it happening to many fitness businesses where they went on a rampant recruitment mode to cope with massive expansion but at last, resulting in low employee retention, even mass resignations in some cases. Our recruitment process comes with a few challenges for them to overcome while non-negotiables are stated right in the interview. The result? Only 1 out of 10 applicants usually get hired but the chances of having the culture fit right from the get go is much higher which makes everything else easier.

Conclusion

Let’s start filling our industry with great companies that last and what differentiates the mediocre ones and the great is the culture. Happy employees equal happy clients. Engaged employees also equal engaged clients. Look no further than building a strong culture in your company and you’ll be granted with a business that thrives long term with a sound business and marketing strategy.

About CJ Lee

From a struggling personal trainer to now the Co Founder of MOVE Private Fitness, the fastest growing personal training only studio model in the region that has presence in Malaysia and Thailand, CJ Lee has been the go to guy for fitness business owners who pique interest in ways to build a culture that drives business performance.

With nearly 2 decades of fitness industry experience from coaching to entrepreneurship spanning across New Zealand, Thailand and Malaysia, CJ has been able to share the essence of his industry experiences on stages like Beyond Activ, Ideaworld Korea, Asia Fitness Conference and ExPro Fitness Conference.