What if you could see your Company Culture Quantified? 📈
At AvocadoCulture, we help organizations see their Company Culture Quantified, weekly, so that they can shape their culture real-time.
Culture: From ‘words on a wall’ to Observable
Company Culture is one of those things that everyone ‘knows’ is important, but it is a concept that is hard to understand. If we are asked about the culture of our company, the best most of us could do is point to a few ‘words on a wall’. At AvocadoCulture, we think of culture as the set of behaviors, values, habits, norms and mindset that are lived day-to-day in the organization. These ‘words on the wall’ are very real in one sense — they may somewhat describe the company, but at the same time they fail to tell us if people are living out the words written on the wall. This is the question that AvocadoCulture helps you answer. If you look at the behaviors, values, habits, norms and mindset as they are lived in your organization, what do you see?
If you can See your Culture, you can Shape it in Real-Time
If you can see your Culture, you can shape it as you go along. By shaping your Culture, we mean you get to shape the behaviors, values, norms, habits and mindset that are actually lived in the organization, not simply creating the words as they exist in a static form (on a wall). For example, this week the things that happened show ‘Got Things Done’ was happening but “100% Integrity’ or “Be Kind’ were not notable behaviors- Knowing that, those areas might be something for people in the company to look at and decide if there is change that needs to happen as a result. And now you know you can look at those aspects of your company in real-time.
Radical Transparency — Everyone sees and is responsible for creating Company Culture
We show Company Culture Quantified to everyone in the company. Traditionally, companies have been run top down. The organization of the future may not be completely flat (there are issues with completely flat structures as people who have experimented with completely flat structures found out), but will certainly be flatter than has traditionally been the case. It would take courage and a commitment to transparency for an organization to show the ‘real’ Company Culture to all. What this transparency creates though is the space for everyone in the organization to be responsible to create the Culture that the company wants to exist. Companies can start having more open conversations about what happened last week. These questions now do not need to come from the leadership. Anyone in the organization can ask themselves and one another — why did we not seem to ‘Be Kind’ to one another last week? We believe done right, with everyone in the company being responsible for the outcomes, meaningful conversations can happen to help everyone create the company they deserve. In that context, Ray Dalio, one of the most successful hedge fund investors implements a concept of Radical Transparency at Bridgewater Associates. One example he gives is where a junior colleague rates him poorly (3 out of 10) and writes down for everyone to see that he did not prepare adequately for the meeting and should have come prepared to the meeting. That’s radical! We are not there (yet…) His Ted talk is an interesting watch.
Culture Leads Financial Performance
What leads to business outcomes in an organization? We believe these are the things that drive everything in an organization: behaviors, values, norms, habits and mindset that are lived out by the individuals in the organization. We see a company as a collection of these: behaviors, values, norms, habits and mindset. These are foundational to everything else such as the markets you are in, who you hire, the products/services you provide, how you deal with changing landscapes, how you deal with competition, how you serve your customers, how you deal with and interact with each other, the environment you create at work, what your business model is and how you operate a business. If your culture is responsible for the business outcomes in your organization, how do you create the culture that leads to your desired outcomes? We believe it starts with being able to see your culture which allows you to shape it real-time.
Why Avocado 🥑🥑🥑?
We often hear people (often paid speakers, authors) spout stereotypes about millennials being ‘entitled’ typified recently by ‘Avocado Toast’ memes. We picked the Avocado in our name to make the point loud and clear that we believe those stereotypes are not useful and mask valuable truths . As a millenial told us: ‘It is not that we are entitled, we simply do not put up with ‘S..t’ that others used to put up with.’ Notable people who have not put up with ‘S..t’ in a public way are modern-day heroes like: ‘Susan Fowler, Ellen Pao…tell us other heroes we should give a shout out to. Company Culture is not just a concept — it has real consequences on people’s lives. AvocadoCulture stands for the possibility of a different way organizations can work: where the humans thrive and are fulfilled, and the organizations win. We invite you to join us in that journey.
Where you can find us (Product Hunt and we are on Slack)
Find us on Product Hunt’s Upcoming here: AvocadoCulture. We are on Slack! Thanks to PH and Slack 😻✌. Our startup is a proud alum of Founder Friendly Labs accelerator in Palo Alto. Thanks to supporters including from Founders Network.
Would love to hear what you think about Company Culture.
If you are a company leader and would like to share your insights about Company Culture, we would love to hear from you. We will publish selected pieces from you here. Email us at hello@goodripple.com saying what you would like to write about and tell us a bit about you.
