Building a great company culture, or how to eat strategy for breakfast!
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast” — Peter Drucker
A famous quote from one of the best-known management consultants on the globe, Peter Drucker, is as relevant as never before. In a globalized world, where borders lose their former meaning, where talents compete on a global scale and recruiters search for the top people from all over the world, where technology enables teams to build previously unimaginable tech products faster and cheaper than ever before, and where COVID-19 forces the world’s leading companies to transform themselves and become fully remote, the importance of strong company culture is increasing dramatically.
Why is it important
Culture lies (or at least should lie) at the core of every team behind any business, irrespective of industry, geography, etc. It builds the base for both, the single performance of every employee, and the total team performance. It defines, whether the company will be efficient or effective, or both, by doing the right things the right way. It defines, how the team members of all levels of the organizational structure will interact with each other, how they will grow, and help their peers grow. It also defines, which people will become a part of the team and which will not. Company culture has a direct impact on its image, brand identity, net promoter score, and employee retention rate. Let’s try to structure, highlight, and elaborate on the importance of the company culture more in detail!
1. Performance boost with 1 + 1 = 3!
A strong company culture provides an environment where ideas are welcomed and constructive feedback is used instead of criticism. This creates an incentive for employees to strive to do their best, try out different creative solutions, experiment, and be confident that they will not be criticized in case of a failure. On the contrary, they will get feedback, which will help them learn from their mistakes. Such feedback culture enables to maximize the potential of each employee, reward their successes, and show them the weak points to work on in a positive way. A team spirit born in such a working atmosphere helps the company overcome the ups and downs of the rapidly changing business environment.
2. Personal growth fosters the company’s organic growth, not vice versa
Strong company culture creates prerequisites for the growth of the employees. Training, coaching sessions, mentorship, team buildings, leadership seminars, choice of different career development paths — these are just a few of numerous measures and methods to foster the personal and professional development of the employees. This helps them and their supervisors understand their strengths, weaknesses, and talents better. It also helps to give every member of the organization a better understanding of their role and contribution to the company’s overall success. Thus, the company functions better as a single unit and grows faster organically. In the end, starting from a certain point, financial motivation loses its impact, and only an environment that fosters growth attracts and retains the best talent.
3. Better onboarding, stronger retention, and higher NPM
Good company culture is built around the employees and strives to create such an environment so that they don’t have to think about anything else but how to deliver maximum value to the company. Preferably from day one. Thus, great companies have a nicely organized and thought through onboarding process, so that the new team members feel welcomed, integrate into the organization and its processes quicker, and have a buddy who will help them feel at home and be “the go-to-guy” if they have any questions. Furthermore, a great company culture leads to stronger employee retention — noone wants to leave an awesome company that really differs from its and, if there are any issues, they will be discussed and fixed quickly, since people are the biggest value. Last but not least, if the working atmosphere is really great, the employees become the company’s advocates and are eager to recommend the company as a potential future employer to their peers — the company’s net promoter score (NPM) gets higher.
4. A clear internal and external identity
Great company culture helps to build a strong internal and external identity. In my opinion, the identity of a company is strongly linked to the concept of the “Golden Circle” described by Simon Sinek in his book “Start With The Why”. It highlights why the company does what it does — the vision and mission of the company, how the company does it, and plans to achieve the desired goals, and what they actually do. Based on that, each employee will also understand which behaviors will align with the company’s identity and which not. Moreover, a great company culture often also ensures that the things mentioned above are clear not only to the employees but also on the outside, to the external stakeholders — partners, customers, etc. Thus, if we think, e.g. of Apple, we think of a company always challenging the status quo, using breakthrough technology, and a beautiful design to create a state of the art devices.
5. Crucial for building new ventures
Company culture is especially crucial for building new ventures and tech startups. Why? Well, startups test hypotheses of new services, products, and business models that haven’t existed yet until they reach the market-fit. Furthermore, in comparison to established companies, startups at their beginnings have no money or other financial incentives, no strict organizational hierarchies, etc., so they are basically driven by their visions and beliefs that they can make a positive impact by building great products or services that people love. In this stage, company culture is the most important thing which keeps the company working.
What is the core of the culture?
Talking about building a great company culture is often easier said than done. Many great companies manage to do it and therefore prosper, but many fail. So, what does it take to build a great company culture? What lies in the core of it? In my opinion, the most fundamental thing, when it comes to building up a culture, are the company’s values!
Values are something that creates a common ground and builds bridges within the company — between the founders as they only agree to build a business together, between them and the employees, and between the employees themselves. Furthermore, they build a basis for future cooperation with clients and partners. They set up expectations, define a common vision, work as guiding principles, and a framework upon which the company functions. There are numerous things without which a business built upon the common, and most importantly the right values, will be able to survive, and which it will be able to overcome, but if the values do not match, it will not be able to build a strong culture, and will not survive, in the end.
Here are some values which I have defined for myself throughout the last ten years of my personal growth and professional experience of working in the startup and innovation industry:
- Proactive leadership — taking initiative and trying to solve problems, by clearly defining the challenges, creating action plans, building teams of the necessary people, showing the way, and providing support along it;
- Entrepreneurial thinking — seeking to find opportunities, where others see obstacles, create win-win situations, feel the responsibility for own actions;
- Constant learning — every mistake and failure makes us stronger if we make the right conclusions out of them;
- Giving a helping hand — it is necessary to help your peers when working on a project together since great results can be achieved only if every team member is on track; leaving anyone behind is not an option, and together with the first two values it creates a remarkable dynamics in the team;
- Acting sustainably — it is important to act in a way so that we preserve and multiply the good things we already have for the future generations;
- Accepting and sharing feedback — this is, IMHO, an extremely important value for startups and dynamic agile organizations, since it creates an open atmosphere where people try to do their best and are not afraid to fail or even sometimes be silly because they will never be criticized but will get constructive feedback which will help them grow;
- Having fun — our work and any other activity need to bring us satisfaction, so we can enjoy the process before we even reach any results.
Team values define the future company culture. Culture helps organizations survive through the ups and downs of business life throughout the years. Always. Strategies, on the contrary, very often appear to be ineffective, since the business environment is changing too rapidly. Imagine, how many strategies failed due to the global pandemic of COVID-19, which was announced in 2020? Imagine, how many will still fail? Therefore, businesses should concentrate on nurturing great cultures, instead of building great strategies.
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