What Culture?

Transcript from the First Episode of the First Season of Hardly Working

Welcome to Hardly working, our podcast on work, culture, business and strategy. This season, we’re dealing with company culture.

So, Nishanth. What are we discussing today?

Nishanth:
On today’s episode we’re going to try to define company culture, look at what elements make up or contribute to culture, why it is so important, and what makes a culture good, or strong.

Culture is a word that gets thrown around a lot these days. It’s become a kind of buzzword for a lot of companies. A lot of start-ups even use it as a kind of promotional tool. But often, culture seems to be associated with perks or dress codes. A lot of employers don’t seem to realize that culture is much more than that, and is vital to the health of the organization.

Maulik:
Indeed, culture is like the heart of any organization. It can play a vital role in determining economic success. And it also impacts the lives of all those associated with it — not just employers and employees but also vendors, suppliers, agency partners and even customers. Why don’t we start with understanding what company culture is?

Nishanth:
Traditionally speaking, company culture started with the company’s mission, vision and their values. And in many cases, that’s where it ended. The founders goals for the company drove the way they worked, the way they performed, and the relationship between them and their employers, vendors and even their customers.

Those elements are still vital to this day, and form the core of a culture. They are also one of the few elements that an employer has complete control over.

Maulik:
I would say that the core of company culture is the relationship between employee and employer. After all the employees are the ones who have to bring that vision to life.

Nishanth:
Yes! Exactly! There’s no point in having a finely tuned or highly crafted mission statement if employees can’t understand or implement it, and more importantly if employees don’t even know what that mission statement or vision is.

Maulik:
And it’s important, because these employees are the ones that form the face of the company. They need to be living these values on a day to day basis. It’s one thing for a company to talk about their values, but when a customer or a vendor interacts with the company, they need to see it in action. It needs to go beyond words.

Nishanth:
Outside of the mission, vision and values, the other elements that make up company culture tend to be slightly more organic, and stem, from like you mentioned, from the employer-employee relationship.

Maulik:
Yeah, so another aspect of culture is the systems and processes put in place by the company. How the company works. How it deals with different situations, both internal and external. How it can adapt to crises, and even the kind of workplace or environment it offers employees.

Even simple day to day tasks. What an employee is expected to do on a project. How aware they are of their contribution to the company’s output. How much time they spend on collaborations as compared to individual work. How many approvals do they have to get to complete a standard task?

All of these are important. And they all stem from that employee-employer relationship. Yes it is important to have a vision, but how much are you empowering your employees to do what it takes to achieve that vision?

Often, organizations only measure their performance on simple metrics. Bottom line and top-line. Profitability. And if targets aren’t met, they end up blaming their employees. How unfair is that? Why wouldn’t they implement the changes suggested by those very same employees? Changes that were suggested to meet targets. If a company is so inflexible, but still so target driven, employees will just get stressed and frustrated. They will start slacking off and cutting corners, and stop worrying about the vision, as they don’t think it can be achieved anyway. Pretty soon those employees will pack up leave that organization for one that offers a better work culture.

Nishanth:
True. I would say a good way to judge a company’s culture is to examine the relationship between the employees and employer.

Adam Grant has a simple way of measuring cultures, which he calls Give and Take. In a Giving culture, employees operate by helping each other, sharing knowledge, making connections, without expecting anything in return.

The opposite is the Taker culture, where employees try to take as much as possible, and contribute as little as possible.

Which leads us to why culture is so important in the first place. Giver cultures tend to be more productive and more constructive than taker cultures. There are two factors at play here: Employees that are empowered to work towards the vision of the company; And a company that is also flexible enough to take feedback from employees, and is willing to adapt or alter their systems and processes to ensure maximum productivity. The nature of this relationship also means that employees are less likely to leave, as they feel they can make a difference, and are contributing positively to the growth of the company. They feel they are not just there to collect a pay check.

And that is really important in today’s day and age, as people are far more likely to job-hop and seek out other opportunities, when they don’t feel fulfilled at a job.

Maulik:
Which is something that’s been playing on my mind recently. A lot of companies today, aren’t focusing on their culture, as they feel employees will anyway leave in a year or two. But they aren’t looking at the reasons why employees are leaving. And then they end up blaming employees for not developing a strong culture.

Employees today are looking for more than just a good salary or a job title to flaunt, they want a culture in which they can grow and contribute. Most of the places that people aspire to work at, tend to have strong cultures.

Nishanth:
True. For all the perks and casual dress codes and bean bag chairs, most large or aspirational tech companies have clearly defined cultures. For example, Google has a document called “10 things that we know to be true” that has defined the direction and values of the company for a long time. It is public knowledge, and every decision the company takes is driven by those values. At the same time they empower employees to come up with their own ideas, think independently, collaborate with other employees, and help the company achieve their vision. Many of their successful products have come out of that culture. Things like an open office environments are just the icing on the cake. You could say those perks are a result of a strong culture, but not the basis for it.

Maulik:
AirBnb is another example that comes to mind. How humanely the layoffs were conducted. How the employees are helping each find jobs at other companies, even at the competition. The organization is actually motivating the staff that’s been retained to help those who have been laid off. That’s an example of a strong culture, and a focused culture.

But it’s not just these tech companies. Even for companies that are known for their high pressure environments, like McKinsey, are still seen as aspirational. Their vision and values are is clearly defined, and available for everyone to see. Same with their processes and systems. They make no bones about the fact that it is a high pressure environment, because they know that anyone they hire will have to work in that space, and should not be disappointed or start feeling disillusioned.

Nishanth:
Which is one reason transparency is so important. When you’re joining a company there are certain expectations of what the work culture is going to be. When those expectations aren’t met, employees start to feel disillusioned.

Maulik:
Exactly, which brings us full circle, to our first point. It’s one thing for companies to talk about their culture, but the actions and behaviors of the company need to match. And the employees need to live that culture day to day. So much of a company’s culture is built around the employee-employer relationship, And that’s something we will be exploring in upcoming episodes, from both sides of the relationship.

I guess to sum up, we can say that company culture, is born with the employer’s mission, vision and values. But it lives in the relationship between employees and employers. After all, the mission statement is pointless if it doesn’t influence systems and processes, and if it doesn’t empower employees. Employees are the ones that need to live that culture and turn that vision into reality.

If every employee is empowered and motivated to contribute positively to the company’s goals, that company has a strong culture. And chances are that company is going to be more productive and have higher retention than companies that have a weak culture, or have neglected to build their culture.

Nishanth:
For our listeners, this season of Hardly Working focuses on company cultures. We’re going to be putting out a new episode very week, so get subscribed. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

That’s it from us, time to get back to work.