Talk about the past
A healthy, productive culture requires continuous reinforcement
from the leader of the organization. This is even more critical during a period of fast growth when new personnel are being added
to the organization.
“Growth is a challenge to your culture,” Weddle says. “As you
bring new people into your culture, into your firm, it’s an educational opportunity but also a necessity. You have to teach people.
You have to hire the right people, but then you have to teach them
the history and communicate the values. A lot of that has to do
with the ‘why you do things,’ not just the what. It’s not something
that you can sit them down for an hour and do an associate orientation and tell them everything they ever needed to know.”
Weddle doesn’t miss an opportunity to teach employees about the culture and history of the firm. When people take a break from
a meeting he’s in, he uses a video clip to get everyone back on time
— and to teach them something about the company in the process.
He shows a clip of Edward “Ted” Jones Jr., son of the firm’s
founder, or retired managing partner John Bachmann or another
prominent figure from the firm’s past talking about what Edward
Jones means to them.
“We’ll have a video clip that we’ll play at the end of the break
and, by golly, if you want to see it, you’ve got to get back in the
room and back in your seat,” Weddle says. “It’s a way to get the
meeting restarted, but it’s also a wonderful way for people to
hear a little bit of the history of the firm. You make it fun, and
I think people appreciate it.”
History can be an important aspect of culture as it often shapes
the decisions the company has made or will make in the future.
“You can teach people what we do or how we do things, but very
important is an understanding of why we do certain things or why
we don’t do certain things,” Weddle says. “A lot of times, history
has guided the decisions that have made us who we are today. …
It’s all wrapped up in what we refer to as the culture of our firm.
We teach it, and we talk about it.”
