Three Things: Forcing (aka Ruining) culture - Sales advice from the WWE - When business gets "boring"

Three Things I Learned In Saas, Sports, Tech and Live Events: 1) Nobody can manufacture passion. It takes time, as we saw at Super Bowl LVI on Sunday . Same goes for culture. The Rams built a $5bln stadium and poured millions into building a fan base. They were overrun by road fans in the last two games. Culture is built by the culture. Not by mandate. Last week, at my daughters volleyball game, our coach let some parents know they didn't want the kids looking at their parents during the match (the parents are, lets just say, a bit into it). He then threatened to bench the girls if they did. He wanted them turning to one another. Eh. That's mandating a culture. Trust is formed naturally, not by force. It is why it is so incredibly powerful. Trust is built through belief and positive growth, not by short term incentives or threats of punishment. Teams don't trust each other because they're told to, they trust each other b/c it's earned. 2) "The most successful wrestlers I've ever worked with are the ones whose characters are the most authentically and organically extensions of who they really are." - Jim Ross, Head of Talent for the WWE for 20 years. Same goes for sales. Ran a pretty broad RFP over the summer. The amount of authenticity was staggeringly low as bankers all acted like one another. The best, from our experiences, are the most authentic. 3) "The better you get the more "boring" the business can seem." So much truth here. At a new business, fighting through the "Jungle" phase is stressful, exhausting, unpredictable and…..exciting! Once you start scaling and doubling/tripling down on what's working, it is less unpredictable. There's a playbook and less improvising. Focus here as that's when small tweaks have outsized outcomes. We all take the talent we get from experience for granted.