Building a great culture
Some managers think that if you hire a bunch of great people and put them in a room, awesome stuff is just going to come out. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. If you want to do great stuff, you need to cultivate a culture that enables it.
When it comes to culture, there are many ways to be right. We strongly believe in entrepreneurial cultures because they motivate people to innovate, create and take risks. So what is it then that characterises an entrepreneurial culture?
Purpose-driven
First of all, they are purpose-driven. In a world that is changing faster than you can say Jack Robinson, change has become a constant factor. But with that comes the responsibility of making choices. And that is something that most companies are not good at, although they think they are. But how many strategic plans look a little bit different from the year before? When I say a little bit different I mean incremental objectives with the same set of activities as the year before. Sounds familiar?
Incremental improvements are important. They help you do better what you’re already doing. That’s necessary to become more efficient and more productive. But it’s not strategy. Strategy means questioning the status quo. It means asking yourself if you’re still doing the right things. Only then can you start with doing the things right. In making these kind of choices, you need a north star. Your purpose will guide you on your quest to create great customer experiences.
Customer-centric
Secondly, entrepreneurial cultures are customer-centric. They put the customer first and try to be part of their customer’s buying proces. In everything they do, they have the will to understand their customers and to create the best possible experiences for them. Simon Sinek explains very well in his book that companies should start with why.
However, the vast majority of companies do exactly the opposite. They are good at a certain thing and build their business around that. Although this is the most intuitive approach it is a fundamental error. These companies are not in a purchasing process (focused on their client), but in a sales process (focused on their offering). That means pushing products and services without an understanding of their underlying needs. That can work pretty well until a competitor rises that does understand the customer needs and develops a whole new kind of product or service on top of that understanding.
Validated learning
Great cultures embrace the idea that they know nothing. They accept the fact that the things they think about a certain topic are no more than interpretations. And they are constantly looking for ways to test these interpretations before moving along. This iterative approach is called validated learning.
Validated learning is not so much a method as it is a mindset. It’s a way of being that is an essential part of thinking. It has to become an automatic reflex. The customer is the expert, so you don’t need to be one. The only thing you have to do, is find out what the customer thinks, feels, wants.You can try and guess or assume this or you can actually go out and try to find out by conducting experiments and validating the results.
Co-creative
Since our rapidly changing environment has made business increasingly more complex, it’s impossible for one leader — even a very charismatic one — to know what will happen and where disruption will strike first.
That’s why successful companies are adopting a new approach. They try to develop some kind of swarm intelligence in order to have an extra set of eyes and brains. Consumers have a range of specific skills and competencies that companies are unable to match. Employees see things management doesn’t. If you can find a way to put these together, you can create an energy that is far greater than what companies can achieve on their own.
At the same time it’s no longer the privilege of companies to define their brand identity. Instead, brand value is jointly created with customers as well. They share their experiences with their peers, they express their requirements and sometimes even participate in funding or manufacturing. So the company as we know it, should evolve into the provider of resources that enable such customer participation.
Intrapreneurial
Entrepreneurial companies are staffed with entrepreneurial people. This is an attitude, not a skill set. It might seem far fetched to hire for cultural fit if you have a short term problem. Let’s say for example your only Project Manager just quit. You’ll need to fix this problem. But try to fix short term problems with short term solutions, while continuing to work on the long term problem.
But what is cultural fit? Well, we’d like to introduce a new concept: the O-shaped profile. You’ve probably heard about T-shaped profiles. The T-shaped profile is a metaphor used in job descriptions to describe a certain skill set of a person. The vertical bar represents the depth of related skills and expertise in a single field, whereas the horizontal bar is the ability to collaborate across disciplines with experts in other areas and to apply knowledge in areas of expertise other than one’s own. While this idea still holds, we’d like to introduce a new metaphor. The circle shaped O represents the ability of a person to get things done, to complete a whole iteration with the available means. It represents skills to create something that might not be perfect, but that is fit for purpose.
When your team is filled with entrepreneurial people, you can expect them to do what you hire them for. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that you give these people the freedom they need to create great stuff. You see, you don’t know in advance from where the innovation will come from, but you do know that one way or another, it’s your people that will make it happen. So give the ones who need it a sandbox, room for experiment. Maybe a few team members want to experiment with their own business idea. Let them! Of course you’ll need to organise and arrange a few practical things, but don’t be afraid that you will lose your best employees. Because chances are that you’ll lose them a lot quicker if you don’t give them the space they need. At least this way, you will be a part of whatever comes out of it.
This blog post is the first of the series “why our industry is failing and what you can do about”. If you liked it, please visits our website or subscribe to our newsletter so we can keep you posted when something new arrives.
