Developing and Maintaining Company Culture

Key Economic Insight

Company culture, the unspoken rules governing interactions, significantly impacts team dynamics and customer relations. It is shaped through various elements including values, fun, celebration, hours of operation, meals, cross-team communication, and politics minimization. Values are critical; by 30 employees, a company inherently has values, which should then be codified rather than chosen. This codification, requiring maximum buy-in from the entire company (e.g., through surveys, themes, leadership voting), creates a shared reference for decision-making and evaluating cultural fit in new hires. Once established, values must guide hiring and firing decisions to maintain their meaning, be actively distributed, and be regularly highlighted with examples at all-hands meetings.

Fostering fun is essential as it boosts engagement, energy, and awareness, leading to better problem-solving and collaboration. Leaders should host events they enjoy and invite team members without requiring attendance; team members hanging out outside work is a good indicator of positive culture. Examples include team lunches, off-site activities like amusement parks, team sports, or movie screenings. Celebration, often overlooked in the drive for improvement, is key for morale. It involves publicly acknowledging achievements at all levels—company, department, team, and individual—at all-hands and team meetings, ensuring necessary but often overlooked teams are rotated in for recognition. Standing demo meetings over meals or drinks can also showcase recent creations.

Managing hours of operation prioritizes output over mere time spent. Motivating teams naturally leads to dedicated work; forcing hours without inspiration yields little progress. Clear goals, feedback, and a fun environment naturally encourage hard work. A core period for everyone to be available, online or in-office, is important, often starting with a short stand-up meeting. Offering meals, particularly lunch, organically bonds team members across different subgroups, beyond just pretax benefits. Encouraging presence at meals by prohibiting electronics fosters interaction. Minimizing politics, which arise from successful lobbying for personal gain, is vital. This is achieved by never allowing lobbying to succeed and by implementing clear, written policies for compensation, raises, and promotions, such as Grade Level Planning (GLP), which defines every position and seniority level with specific compensation metrics, starting discussions around 25 to 50 employees.