The opinions expressed by the entrepreneur are their own contributors.
In the beginning it was only us: two graduates of the law study became serial entrepreneurs, a man and a woman team who worked on our second major enterprise. Our vision, to create a company information and maintenance company, built on a culture of accountability and integrity without compromise. In addition, we wanted our company to work for, where employees were celebrated, encouraged their ideas and creativity, the type of company for which parents would like their children to work. The culture would be unique, daring, not afraid of the judgment, where incidental attacks of “craziness” and non -conformity were not met but embraced.
Such a specific culture was easy to maintain when it was only my husband, myself and our first round of new employees. As a team of fifteen people, our culture functioned as intended. Work was fun. Our culture also ensured that we stand out on the market and loyalty of customers.
Then the growth happened. In a period of a few short years we rose from a literal “mother and pop” operation to more than 100 employees. New ideas and new opportunities come with scales. Teamwork is powerful, larger than the sum of its parts. It was an exciting time. However, such a dynamic growth invites cultural risk. We soon learned that when it is not checked, cultural risk becomes cultural damage: ie the proliferation of attitudes, norms and business practices that are contrary to those on which the company was founded. Because I did not want to lose or compromise for the vision we had for our company for our company, Phil and I have sworn to never have our promotion of our original culture and core values perform.
Related: Most entrepreneurs approach culture in the wrong way. This is what they miss.
How you can think about the culture of your company: a simple rule
Nowadays I use a simple rule of thumb that helps with the cultural administration of our growth. I call this the one-on-one rule, because it is anxious for the one-on-one dynamics that my husband and I shared in the early days of this business company. The one-on-one rule is about a balance between “width” and “depth”. It is easy to understand. Every time your company broadens, to record more staff, more service offers, more locations, new verticals, etc. deepen, In the first place, keeping a deepening of culture to include both workplace culture and customer -oriented brand identity.
In the aftermath of dynamic growth, all old training sessions must be reconsidered and updated. Brand new training sessions must come online that emphasize the most current representation of the cultural identity of the company. Has your company just made a dozen new employees? Great. Congratulations. It is time to place some new team building events on the calendar, events and workshops that will improve the cultural IQ of new and experienced employees.
And please, don’t stop the splendor when welcome your new additions. Parties and other ice-breaking events are must-haves. Try weird things. Serious. Even if they don’t go as planned (and they can go badly). Lesser learned, continue. Try something else. Never lose your will to be weird and never lose the one-on-one principle, and make sure that the depth of your business scales synchronously with its width. This is the recipe for great culture and sustainable growth.
What to do
You can feel that the cultural identity of your company cannot be stronger. It is so inlaid, so attractive, so intuitive that it is obliged to spread organically over layers and layers of expansion. If you think that the culture and values of your company are indestructible, I would advise you to carefully consider the case of Starbucks. That’s right, the Sirene-Singing coffee chain once struggled to present a uniform brand identity. As CEO Howard Schulz describes in his book Furthermore: how Starbucks fought for his life without losing his soulThere was a time when the proliferation of Starbucks stores was so intense that it endangered their ability to offer a uniform customer experience in danger.
As a result, the reputation of the brand was diluted and the Bottom Line of the coffee giant was negatively influenced. Schultz is proud of the dramatic actions he has taken to restore the cultural and brand identity of the company, including the temporary closure of more than 7,000 stores for a few hours in 2008, so that baristas can be retrained about how to make the perfect espresso shot.
Do not make the mistake of thinking that only companies under Enterprise class, such as Starbucks, are subject to cultural risk. Without vigilance, smaller companies can also lose sight of their culture and core values, even in times of slower or no growth. That is why it is important to expand, celebrate and strengthen your culture on a continuous basis, with extra verve during phases of dynamic expansion.
Related: 5 ways in which CEOs can assess and reset their corporate culture
What to do
Your first order, if you have not yet done this, is to determine exactly what you want in the culture of your company. In our company, for example, my husband and I knew from the start that we wanted to build and maintain a family -oriented feeling in our company, one where our team members would get flexibility and understanding if it concerned children’s activities and other family obligations. We also wanted a culture that left hierarchies, and preferred a radical “open door” approach that encouraged direct and safe communication with and between all management levels.
Once you have defined the core cultural principles for your company, it is time to pursue rigorous buy-in from your staff. They must be trained about what, why and how of your cultural practices. Workshops, forums and training sessions must enable your employees to ‘give back’, and contribute their own thoughts and ideas about how the cultural identity of the company can best be defined, refined and realized. For example, a staff member can inquire about how the family -oriented nature of our company can lead that staff without family members have the feeling that they have offered less flexibility than their colleagues. They can even suggest resources with which such discrepancies can be remedied.
My last advice is triple: celebrating, celebrating, celebrating. If you have done your work well, you have produced an environment that wants to inhabit your employees, one that will help them develop and protect them, in which they will feel safe, seen and appreciated. This is a cause that is worth celebrating, and all you have to do is find an excuse to do that exactly. Celebrations can come in many forms. In our store we are big on birthdays, anniversaries and other milestones, whatever we can do to bring everyone together and cherish in the warmth and comrades that we all helped.
In the beginning it was only us: two graduates of the law study became serial entrepreneurs, a man and a woman team who worked on our second major enterprise. Our vision, to create a company information and maintenance company, built on a culture of accountability and integrity without compromise. In addition, we wanted our company to work for, where employees were celebrated, encouraged their ideas and creativity, the type of company for which parents would like their children to work. The culture would be unique, daring, not afraid of the judgment, where incidental attacks of “craziness” and non -conformity were not met but embraced.
Such a specific culture was easy to maintain when it was only my husband, myself and our first round of new employees. As a team of fifteen people, our culture functioned as intended. Work was fun. Our culture also ensured that we stand out on the market and loyalty of customers.
Then the growth happened. In a period of a few short years we rose from a literal “mother and pop” operation to more than 100 employees. New ideas and new opportunities come with scales. Teamwork is powerful, larger than the sum of its parts. It was an exciting time. However, such a dynamic growth invites cultural risk. We soon learned that when it is not checked, cultural risk becomes cultural damage: ie the proliferation of attitudes, norms and business practices that are contrary to those on which the company was founded. Because I did not want to lose or compromise for the vision we had for our company for our company, Phil and I have sworn to never have our promotion of our original culture and core values perform.
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