Team Culture: The Best Advice I Ever Got for Improving My Product Team
Team culture is an important thing for product managers to focus on. It is how you build a great product team.
Shipping great products is the goal of every Product Manager. No matter what company, you need to ship product and you need to ship good product. Team culture helps you make that a reality.
Let me explain.
The Friendships
Since I started working in Silicon Valley I’ve met many people visiting from all over the world. Often on business trips or “Silicon Valley Excursions.” Trips that are meant to inspire people about the culture in Silicon Valley. It is well known that tech giants like Google and Facebook offer crazy amounts of perks. This doesn’t necessarily help to create a culture but to attract talent. Creating the team culture comes from the people that work there. And I am going to share what I learned about that.
When they ask me what is so special about the team culture, I always answer: “The friendships.”
In my personal experience it comes down to a single important point. Become friends with the people you work with. This holds true for all the teams I worked with. And it is especially important in a startup.
Team Culture at Startups
Why? Startups are high intensity workplaces. There is constant hustle, stress and pressure to get things done. High energy, long hours, difficult problems to solve, aggressive timelines.
When all this happens at the same time, you need to stick together as a team.
My first startup gig in Silicon Valley was six years ago. That’s when I moved here. We were a small team with ambitious goals. We worked through many weekends and late nights.
To this day I am still holding very close friendships with people I worked with at this first startup. We are still hanging out. Introducing each other to new opportunities. Going on trips together.
Pushing through long nights and weekends wasn’t always fun…duh. It was hard work. But it was much less taxing. It helped a lot that we were all friends and got along so well.
I experienced this throughout my time here. And it always applies. I wasn’t sure how it would work out when we got acquired buy a bigger company. I expected the team culture to change and be very different.
I was wrong.
The reality was that it worked the exact same way. On my first day I talked to a very experienced Product Manager. He had built and sold several companies. He told me:
“The number one goal is not to build great products, the number one goal is to build friendships.”
Team culture is a relevant topic in all companies nowadays. For employers this means to enable your team making these connections. And for employees it means take that opportunity.
Here are things that helped me when starting to work with a new team:
- Talk to everyone on the team in a 1:1
- Be positive in interactions
- Bring up non-work related topics
- Prepare a 1 minute story about your background and interests
- Find common interests
- Take part in work events
- Organize fun events (Lunches, Poker night etc.)
- Check-in with people about their work outside of stand-ups or meetings
Team Culture Takes Commitment
It takes commitment from both sides. And you will realize who is open and looking for the same and who isn’t.
That’s why cultural fit is especially important in a startup. People need to stick together. And work together in tough situations. You want everyone to come in with the same mindset.
Based on my experience this is what it takes to create a successful team culture. Your company and teammates play a role in it. And so do you.
Be nice, be kind, be a good teammate or leader. It will make a lot of things much easier. For you and your team. It did for me.
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