Building a culture of ambition begins with identifying those who have the passion and motivation to succeed. Dr. Fardad Fateri, discusses how he looks for individuals who have the same values for success and desire to be the best.
Transcript:
To our culture, so out of the ten emails I send in a month to all of you, nine of them are related to culture, different parts of it. We deliberately talk about culture a lot because everything that we want, all the expectations we have, all the numbers we look at, all those results we share on a daily basis are emerging properties of culture. So, if all of us share the same values at the same level and truly exercise them at necessary levels, results will manifest. The implementation of these values, does that make sense? We talk about it a lot and we're very deliberate in building a culture that we want. Every organization has a culture; they may not even talk about it, they may not even know it, but every organization, like every country, has a culture. We have our own. I'm not saying our culture is the best. I'm not even saying it's good. I'm not saying it's bad. But it's ours.
Anyone who comes here and wants to become successful, they need to embrace our values. And again, I'm not saying these are great values, but they're ours, right? So, it's important to understand these values, make sure we live them, behave them, share them, and make it a part of everything that we do. So, we have lots of components to our culture, lots. But I want to focus on just a few today.
Ambition. If your ambition that I see is to be average forever, you will not do well. It's just a prophecy that I have. There is nothing wrong with it, right? There's nothing wrong with wanting to be average and just wanting a job. And if we are not one of your top three priorities in your life, you won't do well here. So, if you want to be a soccer coach, basketball coach, tennis coach, if you have a hobby of underwater basket-weaving, in addition to dancing and like, if you have, if we're number ten, you're not going to do well here. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that.
I'm just telling you the most ambitious, the people who really want to be the best, they're competitive, they work hard, they're passionate, but they want to grow, they want to grow, do very well here. Is telling you the secret, right? And all of you are definitely that because you're here. Ambition is important. You know, it's like the other thing I always tell people is, you know, I love consultants, right? There are millions of them out there, but we don't have those jobs here. If your ambition is to be a consultant, advisor, we don't have that. I'm not saying it's a bad profession; it's an excellent profession, and I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but we don't have that.
We want people here who get the job done right, people who take charge and say, "This is my shop, this is my ice cream shop, I own it, and I'm gonna do whatever it takes to get it done. And my ambition is to be the best, and my ambition is to take the next step and become better and bigger." That's our culture. And whenever I interview people, I tell you, I look for these things because most people interviews, they say, "Well, you know, after I designed a shuttle, I became an astronaut, and after I became an astronaut, I trained other people to build shuttles." Of course, we say, "Wow, that's amazing.
Let's hire the person." We hire them two months later; they can't even draw a shuttle. So, it is very difficult at IEC to hide, you know. There are lots of organizations I worked for; 120 percent do all the work, the other 80% are just hiding, you know. It's like, "Oh, so you walk around thinking, what does this person do, what does that person do?" And we don't have that. Seriously, I mean, do you all agree? There's no hiding, there's a so, if your ambition is to start and hide, ain't gonna happen, I promise you.
The reason I'm telling you all this is not just for you, I want you to take this message back. You've gotta live these values every single day through your behaviors, right? Because you have them.
About the Author: Fardad Fateri
Dedicated to the advancement of student success, leadership development, and organizational excellence, Dr. Fardad Fateri has devoted his 30-year career to catalyzing innovation and transformation in American higher education.
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