Everyone has heard the same, tired advice: “The most important thing is company culture.” … but what does “company culture” even mean, and why should we obsess over it?
Human culture doesn’t just propagate to our kids – how often do you meet a new dog and realize they are a direct reflection of their owner?
Culture is generally defined as the collective customs, traditions, arts, food, & language shared by a social group. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of “culture-shock” – traveling far away from what we know and embracing a totally different way of life.
As humans, we inherently absorbed a set of principles that we live by and perpetuate that culture forward by watching our parents’ behavior and the factors that drive their decisions. And in turn, we propagate our culture by raising children with the same lifestyle, customs, and values as we were raised with.
Culture propagation doesn’t just stop at our kids – how often do you meet a new dog and realize they are a direct reflection of their owner? We just established that our personal, human culture can even be transferred to different species!
OK, sure, but how does any of this apply to company culture? Customs and traditions hold little value in the lifespan of a corporation.
While it can be ambiguous, I define company culture as the organization's undertow that drives your team’s decisions when you aren’t there to give them direct input – which is probably 99%+ of the time your team is at work. If people are constantly making decisions in your organization without your direction, then culture is how you can guide their actions when you are not around. Your team is an extension of you – together you represent your business. Your team will make decisions that reflect the same priorities you demonstrate.
Company culture is the unspoken rules that guide the team’s behavior when you aren’t there. As with human culture, it is learned every day from the behavior the team observes from their leaders.
I first started noodling on Culture after seeing Ben Horowitz’ talk “Culture & Revolution” at Google’s StartupGrind conference in 2017. I’ve embedded and linked the video below where you can learn more about how he defines culture and actionable rules on how to set, maintain, and repair it. Unsurprisingly, you will find a lot of my perspective comes from this talk.
Here is a powerful tidbit from Ben's thinking: After Toussaint Louverture (a former slave himself) completed the first successful slave revolution in history, he spared the lives of slave masters and even allowed them to keep their land so long as they paid for labor. But why? He knew the most important thing to maintaining freedom for his people was actually to maintain the economy!
By clearly demonstrating his priorities, Toussaint set the culture that helped his people thrive through the transition out of a very dark age of slavery. Imagine convincing the other former slaves that letting their past torturers live was a good idea!
Ben’s best advice? Instead of obsessing about how to define your corporate culture using corporate values or perks... Make decisions every day that demonstrate your priorities to the people around you so they move forward and propagate those same priorities throughout the people around them.
Ben's best advice? Make decisions every day that clearly demonstrate your priorities.
In summary - we obsess over culture because it's what drives every decision your team (and therefore, your business) makes from the simplest code change to the most important customer interactions.
Here's the full talk Ben gives on on Culture & Revolution.. do you agree with his advice? Shoot me a note with your thoughts!
