Leaders can improve organizational culture by spending just 10 minutes daily on the right things
Writing Kevin Mark-Watts
Most of us involved in leading businesses will have a fond recollection of our formative years in leadership. It can feel like riding a wave of raw energy – a desire for success fueled by collective belief, with deep involvement in almost every team interaction. Then, with triumphs and promotions, the team expands; the hands-on approach becomes unsustainable. We find ourselves embracing the corporate structure as a new reliance on remote team development emerges.
As the lines of authority grow, channels of communication start to become fragmented. A ‘glass bottom’ emerges: some team members find themselves swimming underneath this glass, experiencing a disconnect from their leaders and from the overarching plan. Exactly where this glass bottom forms in the hierarchy varies by company, but the higher it forms, the greater the number of rank-and-file employees that feel disconnected – and the harder it becomes for leaders to maintain progress.
To address this division and reconnect employees with the organization’s goals, leaders must nurture a growth mindset in individuals. It requires controlling our intentional focus; aligning personal goals and values to those of the organization; framing best practice; and conducting honest self-evaluation. It’s crucial that this mindset be cemented in the DNA of teamwork.
Infrastructure and mindset
Senior leaders face a quandary. The dominant schools of thought in much of business education teach corporate infrastructure, but don’t deal with the leadership mindset. On the other hand, leadership teaching deals with mindset, but doesn’t relate it to the infrastructure. Many aspiring executives complete their business courses or leadership development programs yet are left with gaps in their understanding.
The key lies in linking operating tools with mindset and behavior to create a holistic solution. I advocate applying the techniques of introspective performance analysis – commonly used in sport, from where I draw inspiration – to corporate leadership. Its value lies not just in learning about processes, but in actively engaging in self-analysis and synthesizing disciplined systems with behavioral science.
At its heart, the approach means establishing a profile of best practices across each component of the business infrastructure. Individual strengths are measured against each area, revealing areas for improvement. It is an approach that promotes both greater self-awareness and consistency across teams.
In sport, this is relatively common. Take the meteoric rise of the English football club Aston Villa over the past three seasons, which saw them secure their highest Premier League place in almost 20 years in 2024 before winning the Europa League in 2026. Their success has been attributed in large part to manager Unai Emery’s highly detail-oriented – even obsessive – approach. He uses extensive data and video analysis to meticulously prepare his team, focusing on tactical execution, regardless of a win or loss.
But it is not only the head coaches of elite teams that deploy introspective performance analysis effectively. Sports physiotherapists, for example, use performance analysis to reduce injuries, bringing together GPS, video and biometrics to monitor athletes’ workload, identify faulty movement patterns, detect fatigue and predict risk. Business leaders can learn much from such sporting examples. It starts with these key components.
Communication and meeting momentum
Maintaining alignment and driving progress hinges on how we communicate – and particularly how we manage productivity in meetings. Using tools such as an annual plan, 90-day reviews and weekly touchpoints is crucial. In meetings, adhering to a structured agenda with clear objectives is key. Allocate one-third of any meeting to tracking progress and use the remaining two-thirds for qualifying new opportunities and resolving issues.
People and the organization Aligning people’s skills to organizational requirements starts with establishing the key performance drivers for each role, and then matching individuals based on their personal skills. Each can then focus on their own most important number: the one metric they own that contributes most to the business’s overall most critical number. Reviewing a cross-department scorecard with these numbers in weekly meetings ensures that progress is monitored consistently and areas needing attention are identified quickly.
Team efficiencies and peak performance
Maximizing productivity begins with intentionally scheduling time for high-impact work. Aim for 2-4 hours of ‘zone time’ daily, prioritizing single-tasking on creative, high-value projects.
This level of focus requires peak cognitive efficiency, which can be sustained through a diet rich in fiber and protein to nourish brain cells. Integrating movement – such as walking meetings, ergonomic sit-stand adjustments and midday strolls – further enhances creativity and functionality.
It’s also important to protect the final hour of your day by disconnecting from media and work. The transition into purposeful relaxation ensures the seven hours of quality sleep necessary for the brain to restore itself and recalibrate the day’s acquired knowledge.
Culture: shared vision, purpose and values
Culture thrives when 80% of the team acts as social influencers for the brand. To reach this critical mass, integrate your ‘reason why’ and core values into the employee journey. By helping team members see the business as a vehicle for their own life goals, leaders create a powerful shared purpose.
The blueprint for team acculturation
As you work through each component, you can start to embed self-analysis and evaluation in the team mindset, by applying a daily 10-minute rule to team members’ routines. The goal is to turn intentions into actions, using Donald Schön’s Reflective Model, in four steps: Frame (analyze best practices); Action (initiate a 10-minute exercise); Reflect (evaluate progress); and Reframe (develop changes).
For the analysis, teams work in small groups to agree on a set of 10 best-practice statements for a particular area of their work. For instance, they might create their blueprint for running meetings. They then candidly evaluate their performance against the best practices, identifying one area for improvement for their personal development. Using a journal, they affirm a commitment to a small, 10-minute action that will improve their performance in that chosen area. Finally, they re-evaluate their progress, revisiting their affirmation daily to see how their performance is developing.
By empowering individuals to engage in self-analysis and applying the daily 10-minute rule, leaders can turn the ambition of a few into measurable, accountable action among the majority. As success in sport has proven, this approach creates coherence across every level of the organization – and unleashes true team potential.
Kevin Mark-Watts is a former HR and commercial director at Crystal Palace Football Club, and author of The 10 Ten-Minute Rules: A Mindset for Creating Winning Teams in Business (LID Publishing)
