How Can A Value-based Culture Benefit Martial Arts Businesses?
"Several years back, we went through a bit of a slump with our school’s culture.
We had a few changes, and a few instructors left.
Being in the business for 25 years, there are going to be modifications in our culture.
It's always going to happen, and we've had that happen probably five different times over 25 years.
It can be just as simple as we're adding a new program, or we decided we want to go from being a small-town community hall to having our facility.
Some people didn't like that idea.
They thought that "No, that's not martial arts."
Then going from that to having multiple rooms with air conditioning, that's like, "Well, now that's not martial arts."
To some, it’s like turning your school into a gym.
We had a lot of obstacles to overcome to keep growing and go in the direction that I thought that the school needed to go in, and also where I thought the majority of my students deserve to have their school go in.
I'm always looking out for them to have the best facilities, the best instruction that they can have, but that doesn't come without its challenges.
We sat down with an expert that is an expert in culture, and I'm lucky enough that my wife's also a culture manager.
She, along with one of my best friends, came together and we created these value systems for our school.
They are unbreakable rules that we run our business by and run our school by.
Then they were up on the wall in massive posters.
"We believe that everybody has the opportunity to become a black belt, not just the athletes."
?"We believe that nobody should blow another person's candle out."
?We have all these belief systems, and they're everywhere throughout our school.
?It tells everyone, "This is what we believe in."
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?For me, culture is the number one thing as far as I'm concerned.
?It doesn't matter what you teach.
?It doesn't matter if you're doing martial arts, gymnastics, or dance.
?If your culture is not right, you'll never grow and you'll never have harmony inside there.
And you'll never have a day off because you'll be having to micromanage your team all the time.
I don't micromanage my team.
I don't teach classes.
I trust my team because they are well-trained.
We do monthly training sessions where we go through any of the issues we had during the last month.
We discuss and fix it all, and then we move on.
We listen to the feedback from our students and their parents.
It's an ongoing process that doesn't happen overnight, but it has to happen."
George
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