As my business edges nearer to its second birthday, I’m reflecting on how it works and the culture within. When I started out, I didn’t think about internal culture, it was just me so it wasn’t really required. I focussed on how the business appeared to the outside world, and spent a lot of time doing that!

Now we are five strong and about to move to a fantastic new office. We’re also in the process of creating a new website and I feel like we’re moving towards Velocity 2.0. A natural time for me to really start establishing a working culture. I want to do this now as we are in a period of rapid growth and if I can put a great culture in place now, it will mean that it is easily adopted by new members of the team. So, I’m writing a manifesto for the Velocity Digital culture. I thought I’d share some parts of that here, starting with a look at some principles…

1 — We will always be at the top of our game, super-informed and innovative

2 — We will always look to educate our team mates and clients, sharing our knowledge and insights

3 — Where possible, everything we do for our clients will be highly measurable

4 — Our relationships with both clients and our team mates will be transparent and respectful at all times

5 — We live and breath solutions — there’s never a problem that can’t be solved

The other area I’ve been looking at is day-to-day working practices…

1 — Eating lunch at our desks is banned — get away from your computer!

2 — You are encouraged to get outside for at least 15 minutes in your lunch-break. Clear that head!

3 — If you can’t make a good cup of coffee, you better learn fast!

4 — Every week, a member of the team will be given a topic to learn about and then will deliver a briefing on that subject to the rest of the team

5 — A tidy desk is a tidy mind! Spot fines may be issued. Well, forfeits at least

That’s just a taster of some guidelines I’m putting in place in an attempt to create an enjoyable, effective culture. Whether it can be achieved remains to be seen, but I’ll bust a gut trying to make it so and I’ll ensure the team are on-board with it and have a big input into our guidelines.

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