Good Comes First: How Today's Leaders Create an Uncompromising Company Culture That Doesn't Suck

Discover the practical, step-by-step guide to creating a workplace culture that’s better for employees, customers, and stakeholders—and your company’s bottom line.

For decades, talented people have tolerated old-school leaders who put results before respect, toxic company cultures, and workplaces that suck. But those days are over, and if leaders want to attract and retain the best employees—while improving productivity, customer service, employee satisfaction, and profits—it’s time for them to create work cultures where good comes first.

 

The problem is that because the corporate world has too often been driven primarily by results, we seldom ask leaders to change their work cultures. Even if we did, most leaders don’t know how. This book provides the actionable inspiration and practical direction needed to make that change happen.

 

In Good Comes First, S. Chris Edmonds and Mark S. Babbitt go beyond theoretical advice, using their combined 50 years of experience to present proven strategies for creating purposeful, positive and productive work cultures. Cultures where good comes first for employees, customers, leaders, and stakeholders—and where improved business outcomes quickly follow.

 

In these pages, readers will learn to:

Appreciate why a good comes first culture is a business imperative – especially for younger generations.

Distance yourself from the competition that maintains its undefined work culture (one that most likely sucks).

Identify what “good” means for your company in today’s business climate – and in the future of work.

Define your uncompromising work culture as you build a foundation of respect AND results.

Formalize your team’s servant purpose so that everyone understands how what your team does improves lives and communities.

Specify respectful behaviors, so your desired values are observable, tangible, and measurable.

Align your entire organization to your desired work culture – where good comes first every day.

Assess the quality of your current work culture by measuring and monitoring how well your leaders and your executive team demonstrate your servant purpose, valued behaviors, strategies, and goals.

Hold everyone accountable for both respect and results through modeling, celebrating, measuring, coaching, and mentoring leaders and team members.

Implement real, needed change – and quit “thinking” and “talking” about change (but never really get change started).

Become a change champion while creating a lasting legacy as a business leader.

Build a team of good people doing good work in a good company.

 

What’s more, Good Comes First shows you where potential barriers to success hide—and how to push through them—and illuminates the moments when you’ll feel the most satisfaction and gain the most traction.

After reading this book, you will see that when done right, change is not only possible—it’s practical, powerful, and profitable. And you will realize that you are the right person, at the right time, to make that change happen.

Chris Edmonds is a speaker, author, and executive consultant who helps senior leaders create and sustain purposeful, positive, productive work cultures. After leading successful teams for 15 years, Chris started his company, The Purposeful Culture Group, in 1990. Chris also served for 24 years as a senior consultant with The Ken Blanchard Companies. Chris has worked with companies such as V Starr Interiors, EleVen by Venus Williams, World Kitchen, and Five Below. He is the author of The Culture Engine, plus five other books. Included in Inc. Magazine’s “100 Top Leadership Speakers,” Chris is an in-demand presenter and was a featured speaker at South by Southwest.

Mark S. Babbitt is president of WorqIQ, a consultancy focused on transforming leadership, building “good comes first” company cultures, and developing Workplace Intelligence (WQ). Mark is also the Founder and CEO of YouTern, a community focused on helping young careerists get their first or next internship or job. He has worked with companies from IBM to faith-based nonprofits and Silicon Valley start-ups. Mark is co-author of A World Gone Social: How Companies Must Adapt to Survive. In addition, he has contributed to Harvard Business Review, Entrepreneur, Forbes, and many other publications. Like Chris, Mark is an in-demand speaker and was named a “Top 100 Leadership Speaker” by Inc. magazine.