WTF is culture?

In recent years, the conversation about company culture has moved from the confines of management theory to the mainstream.

Free lunches and fitness classes, Chief Happiness Officers and hackathons, craft beer and foosball tables are often cited as evidence of a company’s commitment to creating a great work environment.

But what’s the relationship between these things and ‘culture’? What even is ‘culture’ anyway?

Like all nebulous concepts, there is no shortage of definitions and metaphors: “civilisation in the workplace”; the “mortar that holds the bricks of strategy together” (if it hasn’t eaten the strategy, that is); or simply, “the way things get done around here”.

Ask an anthropologist for guidance — as one often does — and you’ll hear it’s “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society”.

Glad that’s cleared up then.

Witness the fitness.

Given there’s no consensus on definition, it’s natural that, for business leaders, developing a culture strategy can be a conundrum.

At Multiple, we have a different concept for culture: it is to businesses what fitness is to humans. It helps balance you out, enhances your performance, and generally makes you much harder to kill. Plus, often, more attractive…

But how to go about getting fit? Well, the first step is to reflect on what you ultimately want to achieve. Or, as Simon Sinek famously said, to start with ‘why’.

In the context of an organisation, that means determining the fundamental reason for its existence: or, as we call it, its purpose.

Whether it’s to organise the world’s information or to make the world more open and connected, a well defined purpose is a powerful propellant for a company on a growth journey.

It drives focus, alignment, and motivation by linking everyone’s day-to-day work to the company’s ultimate ambition. Without a clear sense of purpose, it’s more difficult to determine what your culture should look like, and therefore how to strengthen it.

However, a well articulated purpose is not enough. To fulfil it, you need a blend of suitable values, behaviours and an environment that combine to create a high-performing culture that’s specifically fit for YOUR purpose.

The Greatest.

It’s only natural given we’re striving for different goals that there is subjectivity about what ‘great’ looks like: one person’s dream physique (or work environment) is another’s nightmare.

Do you aspire to be a gymnast? Rower? Sumo wrestler? Their appearances and anatomies are distinct. Yet they’re all athletes who adopt similar approaches to achieve success: optimising their physique, nutrition, and fitness regime for their specific goals.

What’s more important to you: flexibility or stability, explosive power or endurance, size or speed?

Once you decide what kind of ‘great’ you aspire (and don’t aspire) to be, you can more easily prioritise where to focus your efforts. Trying to optimise for everything simultaneously usually results in being mediocre at most.

What’s more, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel to take your first steps to getting fitter. Whilst wholesale, mindless mimicry of another company — often Google — is bad, imitating what works elsewhere can be a good place to start.

The most important thing is to ensure it’s authentic to you and your purpose.

99 Problems. And culture’s just one.

Have you ever acquired a six-pack overnight? Chances are — unless it’s beer — it’s a no. There aren’t shortcuts to getting in shape: you need to set goals, plan a routine, and measure progress along the way. Culture is no different.

In the early days, many startups are naturally blessed with a great culture. Communications are generally easier. People understand how their work contributes to the bigger picture more readily when the team is smaller. But the rude health of youth only lasts so long: we will all deteriorate in time.

Part of the challenge of getting fit is balancing workouts, sleep, and nutrition with other commitments that demand your attention. You have sales targets to hit, people to hire, offices to move, investors to placate, and money to raise… There’s always something else that seems more urgent and important.

However, there will never be a perfect time to give your culture some love. You have to squeeze it in regardless. Small lapses in effort are usually redeemable. But major neglect takes time to recover from. Ultimately, training little and often will enable you to fulfil all your commitments better and more easily.

It’s tricky. Don’t try to tackle everything at once.

Before you invest in a shit-ton of lycra, carefully consider how you will define, measure and incentivise cultural success. Employee referral rate? Employee turnover? Overall engagement?

Once you’ve done that, gather data, do some diagnosis, and run some tests. Remembering not to change too many variables at once so you can know what’s eliciting any resultant improvements.

If you’re going to undertake this work, have the courage to own and act upon the results: whatever they are. If you don’t, you’ve wasted everyone’s time, undermined your leadership, and everyone will be way less willing to participate next time.

In sum, building a great culture that outperforms and outlasts the competition is a marathon, not a sprint. Train accordingly.

Time to train: common scenarios that demand culture fitness.

Scattered to the four winds: distributed teams.

Distant talent and digital nomadism and other factors are leading to a rise of distributed teams. How do you enable your scattered squad to get acquainted, bond and build the trust that fosters great teams? Regular company-wide get-togethers are a great start but a well designed team, frequent feedback sessions, and a structured internal communications strategy are also essential.

Mo money, mo problems: recent investment raise.

Raising a round is great but you then have to achieve the ambitious growth you forecast. All the job ads in the world won’t pull in the requisite people if your brand is poorly positioned and your candidate journey as uncoordinated as a first foray into a Zumba class. Clearly codifying your values will help qualify candidates, in-depth inductions will help introduce newbies to your ways, and a slick candidate-to-hire journey will bolster your reputation (and retention).

Don’t call it a comeback: slow growth and/or attrition.

More often than not, the true test of your culture fitness comes when something’s gone awry. A competitor just grabbed a chunk of your market share, people keep leaving, or your growth is slowing and you don’t know why. Keeping communications channels open, and making management available for tough conversations is crucial. Building a data-driven picture of the problem through surveys allow you to target your efforts efficiently. Assimilating diverse skill- and mindsets from across (and outside) the company will encourage creative tension and preclude groupthink as you seek to get back in shape.