Your Business Empire will be a House of Cards Without This Foundation…

My notes of Jack “JJ” Jackintelle talk at the Grant Cardone 10x Growth Conference 2017.

Jack (JJ) Jackintelle President and CEO at Rick Case Automotive. Jack has used Grant Cardone’s sales principles in the Cardone “On Demand” the Car Sales Version of Cardone Sales training programme (additional related sub-categories for car dealerships only) otherwise its the CardoneU to generate $1.5 billion in sales last year.

Culture

Jack talk was on the theme of “Culture”, which is of fundamental importance for any business, and no excuse will be tolerated to circumvent it, in the business group that he runs.

Jack has the stage presence of someone who looks like he could physically enforce the principles he espouses too, if he wished to do so.

Jack started by saying, you have got to have the right foundation in business before you can build upon it or your business will collapse (rather like a house of Cards) somewhere in the future and that having the right “Culture” is that foundation, which must support your vision for the future of your business or it will turn in to a nightmare.

Jack stated five core principles as the foundation of a business:

1: Culture: You must have behaviours your business deem as non-negotiable; such as dress code /uniform and name badge. Greetings and business formalities, Jack gave an example Chick –Fil-A: with their “My Pleasure” a company he greatly admires, for the way they have integrated the right “Culture” within their business model.

2: Mission: Your purpose: the reason your business exists as an organisation. Everyone must be on the same bus, know what the mission statement means and observe it and put it in action.

3: Clear performance standards: The quantity and or technical aspects of the job that must be performed with excellence.

4: Core competencies: Your strongest capabilities as an organisation: those that create greater margins and differentiation between yourself and your competition.

5: Right People: People are key to your culture. Your staff you hire must share your values, believe in your mission statement, and have competence to achieve your performance targets, maintain the necessary skills and talents to support your business core competencies.

Hiring and interviewing the right and rejecting the wrong type of employee is paramount to your success. Jack has a human resource department ( the car business has 1280 sales people and 500 managers) prospective employees, do a one minute video reading from their culture card, and Jack has the overall decision on who gets hired.

Culture Dictates Behaviour and in turn behaviour determines results: maintaining and improving your culture will lead to sustainability of your business; culture is the foundation through the right behaviour which will lead to results that are sustainable over the business cycle.

Jack Said that new visions every so often, or flavour of the day sales, etc may result in short term gains but will not yield long terms results.

Jack then presented a slide with a triangle of words: Get clear, Get visible and measure:

Be Clear; Your Leadership role in culture: Cultures of merit have strong accountability which must have crystal-clear clarity. Leaders delegate a lot of roles however, creating, protecting and sustain a merit culture is not one of them.

Get Visible; Your leadership is important and must be seen to be done physically be you, not left just to voice mail, email or memo’s, you must have and show high standards that you expect of yourself and therefore of your staff and your executive directors at board level.

Measure; Your must measure and benchmark constantly, targets, performance and behaviour, all gray areas must be eliminated.

Merit Cultures are built over time, not over night so overall you must be consistent.

Merit Culture Traits:

Jack says there are three key traits for a business to become great: Earn, Deserve, Responsibility; which must be woven into the vocabulary, the business standards and the culture of your company.

Earn; acquire through merit

.

Deserve; to be worthy of.

Responsible: the primary cause for doing something positive for the business.

Jack says there are three key bad traits for a business that must be removed and should not be allowed to prosper in your business vocabulary, or in the business standards and the culture of your company

.

1: Entitlement; a sense of entitlement being allowed flourish will be corrosive and create resentment.

2: Mediocrity in targets; average behaviour and average standards being accepted should not be tolerated.

3: Excuses: Allowing excuses to be used for the lack of achievement of targets to be met, of poor standards and bad behaviour, will have a insidious detrimental effect over a period of time.

Get Tough

Jack rounded up his 45 minute talk by stating that you must get tuff on cultural infections, you must confront the tuff stuff, turn around and remove those people who do not keep to or achieve the targets, enforce standards and behaviour that are expected and these must be maintained.

Maintain and Protect

Jack stated you must be firm but fair with a zero tolerance, no exceptions for people; you must eliminate business red tape and have no gray areas.

Protect, Protect, Protect.

Jack said if you fail to shape your business with your culture: then you will get the culture that society will impose on your business: its influencers, it’s type of mindsets and what ever the current trends are at that moment from the newspapers, the radio, television and social media on the internet.

Most western countries societies impose four types of cultural infections:

1: A Decline in Civility: Good manners cost nothing.

2: The Rise of Entitlements: First in-last out culture, but I been here since it started and I should get…

3: Normalised Immorality: vulgarity, profanities and bigotry, should not be tolerated.

4: The scapegoating of successful people. Envy of others who through hard work and astute business acumen, are used targets to promote hate of others because of their individual circumstances or particular beliefs or understanding of a basic premise.

These society influences, will destroy your business culture, if you let them; they are persistent and represent threats to your business health and culture.

Protect Your Culture Today Not Tomorrow

Jack certainly gave a strong commanding presentation and has a formidable presence on stage, so his impact must be felt very strongly in his organisation.

Jack said he behaves the same at home as he does at work. He takes no BS and sticks to his principles and expects no less from ALL his employee’s and that includes his family.

This blog is also available at Grant Cardone 10x Growth Con Jack Jackintelle