Culture at Work: Megan Cunningham
A conversation with the polymath CEO of Magnet Media on how to build and work with teams of diverse, talented people, and driving innovation through inclusiveness and creative friction.
For Contently’s second Culture at Work talk, we were joined by Megan Cunningham, CEO and founder of Magnet Media, an award-winning digital video studio and solutions provider.
Her conversation with our co-founder Shane Snow centered around creating a supportive and successful work environment, the bumps she and Magnet Media have encountered along the way, and the important lessons she’s learned as an entrepreneurial woman. You can read the highlights of that discussion below, or watch a recording of the full talk here:
Creating a magnetic work environment
“Best tips don’t work, you have to be there and be present.”
Throughout her presentation, Cunningham stressed that being present and involved in your work environment yields better results than most cliché tips for creating a happy workplace.
“We have different expectations that we bring to a job, different paranoias, fears, and jealousies, and it’s all invisible,” she said. Empathy and communication are one means of finding common ground among these differing expectations, but even acknowledging that we bring our personal lives to work with us can be transformative.
“Our mantra is one company.”
It seems like a pretty simple statement, but for Cunningham, the key was to link this mindset to behaviors and actions. She said that everyone at Magnet contributes to its success and the company stresses being accountable for one’s work and proactively contributing to the team. As she said, “We reward people who exhibit that kind of behavior, like backing down from arguments for the sake of efficiency.”
Hitting the low point and fostering friction
“You can’t do everything; at some point, you get to a point where you trust that people will do what’s right.”
Right as Magnet was experiencing unprecedented growth, employee discontent crept in. Mostly, it came from what Cunningham said was “real or perceived preferences and jealousies.” It seemed that the discontent was felt company-wide, so she set up one-on-ones with her 40–50 employees. Through the course of those meetings, she realized that the problem was much more contained, but that there were some key areas where the company could improve.
Even before coming up with values, she knew that they didn’t want to roll out them out as a top-down mandate. Instead, Magnet crowd-sourced their values, which they then vetted by asking employees to share related anecdotes. “If you can’t think of a time when your co-worker has exhibited one of these values, then they aren’t our values,” she said.
Their behavior-focused approach to picking values also made it easier for employees to buy in to the new culture. Cunningham remembered one employee saying, “When I first started, when something went wrong people would ask ‘Who did this?’ Now people are asking “How can I help?” This was a major indication to Megan that things were beginning to improve, though she also stressed that company culture is not a “one and done” kind of problem.
“We all need to chip away at this, because it’s not going anywhere.”
Let’s hear from the audience
After her talk with Shane, Cunningham took a few questions from the Contently crowd.
“You said that the disgruntled employees were a tiny cancer within the company; how did you resolve that?”
Cunningham noted that resolving this issue centered on communication: “I wasn’t aware of a lot of things, and these one-on-ones gave everyone a safe opportunity to voice concerns. One of our producers said that they had to pick between buying an extension cord and water for talent, which obviously isn’t okay! Once I knew that, I could fix it.”
“What one piece of advice would you give your 25-year-old self?”
Megan’s regret was shying away from the finance department, an area she didn’t know well. Moreover, she said to recognize that leaders don’t know everything: “We’re all responsible for the great work that we’re able to do.” In other words, a great company takes a village.
“How do you maintain motivation?”
Magnet sometimes produces its own tangential content, giving their creatives an opportunity to create without having to answer to a client. As she said, “We’re responsible for our own happiness, but I do think it’s the company’s job to provide paths for fulfillment.”
