If you’re a people leader who’s seen the movie Wonder Woman, you may be wondering how you can get your own small business’ employees to leap tall buildings in a single bound, remain relentlessly committed to their mission, and innovate their way out of every challenging situation.
 
You may, or may not, want your team to turn up to work in full costume (every day,) but you absolutely can turn them into a band of superheroes –greater than the sum of their parts.
 
We know that companies with highly engaged employees are more profitable, productive, have lower turnover and better work quality than their competitors – all of which directly affects your bottom line. And, (spoiler alert!) as you know from the movie, not having Wonder Woman-like employees on your team can lead to some pretty grim consequences.
 
So what’s holding them – and your business – back?
 
Assuming that your business is generally well run, that you’ve given your people the tools they need to do their jobs, and that you’ve got a solid organizational structure and decent talent, you may be scratching your head thinking, “what else can I do?”
 
1. Clearly communicate your company’s Mission, Vision and Values
In the movie, Wonder Woman is very clear why she’s leaving Themyscira – she wants to kill Aries, and save the world/humanity. When the going gets tough, she’s able to recall her mission, and why it’s so important to her.
 
She also uses her mission, vision and values as decision-making criteria – when faced with choices and compromises, she’s able to act decisively (understatement!) and in alignment.
 
However, for mere mortals in business, this can be more challenging. Many companies, especially smaller ones, haven’t fully articulated their mission, vision and values, or they're languishing as conference room posters instead of activating greatness.
 
The truth is, the smaller your company, the easier it is for your values to bring out your employees’ inner superhero. See below.
 
2. Co-create
Back on Themyscira, Wonder Woman was content to trust the values of the Amazons on faith – after all, her mother was their queen. Eventually, she uses those core values and beliefs to forge her own path – that’s innovation.
 
However, your employees may need a little more involvement in determining why and how they do what they do every day at work. Small business leaders often say that they don’t have a mission, vision and values, but that’s usually not actually true. Collectively, you and your employees probably have a pretty good intuitive understanding of your company’s purpose and how you can best achieve your goals.
 
If you’re very small – like a startup – you should develop values before you start hiring – they’ll have a big impact on who joins your company, how they behave once they’re there, and how long they stay with you. However, if you’ve already got a merry band, then get together, brainstorm and co-create your mission, vision and values as a team. When you develop them as a group they will be more resonant, and less likely to serve as the aforementioned, oft-ignored conference room art.
 
As a reminder, your:
Mission statement articulates the reason your company exists
Vision statement describes the successful future state of your business
Values are like a social contract; they describe how and why you work together.
 
3.Walk the talk
As a leader, you yourself may not feel fully confident (yet) deflecting machine gun fire with your shield and/or wrist bands, but that shouldn’t stop you from leading the charge when it comes to exemplifying the values you (and your team) have identified.
 
Remember, part of the value of values is that they serve as decision-making criteria, and that starts at the top.
 
For example, if you’ve selected ‘Celebrating our Successes’ as a value, then be sure that you actively recognize your team member’s amazing work. When you do, be sure to reference your ‘Celebrating our Successes’ value so that your people know that living them every day is an important part of who you are as a company, and a team.
 
Your people are your secret weapon
To be sure, those scenes of Wonder Women felling bad guys with her golden lasso and amazon warrior skills are pretty cool. But remember, it’s her empathy for the starving woman she meets in the trench that compels her to act. And maybe this is the most important lesson that Wonder Woman can teach us about how to run a company; human-centric businesses outperform others. When you prioritize employee experience and engagement, you too can reap the rewards – your very own band of superheroes.
 
For more information on building a values and purpose-driven company, check out the Resources page on our website.
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I listen to a lot of podcasts, and again and again I hear interviews with entrepreneurs crediting their ceaseless hard work and unending toil for their success.
 
They keep saying things like, “You have a choice, you can either chill out and watch Netflix at night, or you can work on your business.”
 
But I disagree. I don’t think it is either/or. I don’t believe that switching gears and ‘chilling out to watch Netflix’ really is bad for your business. I’m pretty sure it’s completely necessary, at least for me.
 
I also keep hearing about entrepreneurs who say that they get their best work done in the morning, and I've certainly found that to be true. I usually wake up with an idea or an instinct, and leap out of bed (to get coffee, and then) to pursue it. I do my best writing in the morning. Saturday mornings are when I do my best sustained thinking work – I love being able to spend six or more uninterrupted hours on a project or product development.
 
By 5 or 6pm, my brain is usually done with the 'strategic work" part of its day, however. Hello, Netflix! Or Hulu. Or HBO Go. Or Amazon Prime.
 
However, even though my brain might be a bit fried by the end of the day, there are still a lot of important tasks that can be completed in the company of streaming entertainment – tasks that actually enable my entrepreneurial activities during my fresher hours.
 
I pay bills. I take care of online shopping. I track expenses. I do laundry, cook dinner – you know, all the normal life activities that need to be done whether you’re trying to build a business or not. I’ve also found this is when I’m at my most relaxed to network, coach clients, or visit with friends.
 
And I think there are a couple of important points to make here. First, your business cannot be built in a vacuum. No matter how driven you are, in order to really understand product-market fit, you need to actually live in the real world. And in the real world, there are cool shows on Netflix. Personally, I often use popular culture references as metaphors or analogies in my work to help articulate subtle concepts.
 
I also use shared understanding of culture to connect with clients, partners, and colleagues. Being able to laugh over a funny line on Silicon Valley helps build and cement relationships. It demonstrates that I am, in fact, a human (wow, that sounded very Laurie Bream). A television-watching human, and not a robot that works on its business 24 hours a day. That’s just weird.
 
The second point, in the same vein is, your business also cannot be built in a vacuum. Arguably, no one is working harder than Arianna Huffington to prove this point. Her organization, Thrive Global, is dedicated to shifting our perceptions of what and how we succeed in business. Fighting burnout requires not only sleep, but psychic rest, and sometimes that means Netflix.
 
“Recent science has shown that the pervasive belief that burnout is the price we must pay for success is a delusion. We know, instead, that when we prioritize our well-being, our decision-making, creativity, and productivity improve dramatically,” writes Huffington.
 
The model of working around the clock, fueled by 5-hour energy drinks and a dream is outmoded.
 
In his blog, Tim Ferriss speaks to the necessity of ‘deloading’, and a conscious period of “strategically taking my foot off the gas,” and “for lack of poetic description — unplugging and fucking around.”
 
This brings me to my final point, what’s with all the entrepreneur-shaming? Why are we still engaged in this competitive battle over who can work the hardest? This isn’t college; you don’t look cool because you pulled an all-nighter to finish a paper. Why are people who deny themselves awesome shows on Netflix somehow more worthy of success than those who don’t?
 
Everyone in this game is juggling life priorities. Everyone is walking the tightrope of time management. And most of us also know that horrible feeling when you realize that the only thing standing between you and what you want is your own time/ability/hard work/innovation/drive/delivery/insert-whatever-else-is-standing-between-you-and-what-you-want-here.
 
We also know that entrepreneurship is a mind game. It takes resilience and mental toughness. You have to be able to ride the rollercoaster every day. So at the end of the day, I’d suggest that you put your feet up for a while and watch The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu. It’s very good. Then you’ll be ready to take on the world again tomorrow.
 
How do you battle burnout?
Have I got it all wrong? Is entrepreneurship really fueled by 5-hour Energy Drinks and a Dream?