What you can do to cultivate an entrepreneurial culture
In our last post we explained why we believe in entrepreneurial cultures. The question remains what you can do to cultivate such a culture. Here are a few tips to get you started. If you’re serious about cultural change, consider hiring a change consultant. Things might get rough along the way and you might want some support when they do. Anyway, here we go.
Fire assholes
Start with firing assholes, even if they are brilliant. Assholes ruin your long term vision and place a time bomb under everything you’re trying to build up. At times it might seem that you need them but trust me, nobody is that good. Also go after the heroes and the rock stars in your company. You know the guy that redesigns the whole website over a weekend? They are the kinder and softer version of the asshole, but they’re equally harmful to your culture. They create discontent with your team and they have a higher burnout rate.
What you should do is hire for cultural fit. Of course to do that, you need to know what your culture is or what you want it to be. You can’t prescribe a culture. But you can describe a strong set of values that represent the characteristics of the company you want to be and match new recruits and employees against these values. This is not something you do over lunch. It’s hard work. A value is not just a word you put in a frame in the lobby. It’s a true and deep understanding of who you really want to be. All too often I see organizations burn tons of cash just to come up with a piece of paper nobody believes in. That’s a shame.
If you’re the leader: lead
If you are in an executive position, make sure that you are not involved in any operational process in a different way. You might not believe it, but managing a company is an actual job and like with any other job you should at least try to be good at it. Being a tactical opportunist is not gonna cut it. You need to know where you’re headed.
After you know where you’re headed, make sure everyone else knows it too. Be detailed, particular, consistent and firm about your vision. Each one of your employees has to know what the company vision means for their job. They need to know why they are doing what they are doing. More often than not mission statements describe how the company plans to make money: “We want to be the largest manufacturer …” or “To provide the best possible service in the … industry”. But that doesn’t describe your reason for being. It’s just something that looks good on your annual report. But it’s not real. And we don’t buy it! You are not in business to make money, you make money to be in business! At least, if you want to build something sustainable and durable. If you find out what your purpose is and act upon it, you will find it a lot easier to attract the right employees and work with the right customers.
Be transparent
Even if you’re constantly reinforcing your vision, rumors will inevitably find their way into your teams. Gossip is usually a misinterpretation of your vision and plan. So many times an employee heard something from someone about something. And they don’t agree with what they heard. To stop this from happening, they should hear it from you. That’s why you should be as transparent as possible. One-on-ones are a great way to do this. Another idea is a weekly email or a weekly plenary standup meeting. Whatever you do, keep the information flowing at all times.
For old school managers this is often difficult. In the old world information was provided on a need to know basis. Employees were informed when the manager thought the time was right. That might have worked in a conformist and hierarchical culture, but not anymore. If you are serious about your business, start growing a pair and don’t be too tight-up. It takes a lot of self-confidence to deal with uncertainty or to admit that sometimes you just don’t know. Or to take and communicate unpopular decisions based on fragmentary information. But you will soon notice that it pays off to be open about it.
Another thing about transparency is the way you give and receive feedback. Lot’s of managers (think they) are good at giving feedback. And they expect you to be good at receiving it. But all too often, they don’t lead by example. They suck at receiving feedback. There’s always this external argument why this or this did not happen the way it was supposed to. Now that’s not ok. If you want to promote openness, be open yourself. Be as good in receiving feedback as in giving it.
Don’t control but empower
Promote ownership within your organization. Empower people to make decisions on their own. If you do decide to override, choose very wisely. As long as their choice is in line with your general philosophy, let them pursue their intuitions.
Over time, you’ll probably want some standards in your company. Although it’s wise not to have too many, make sure that when you do, you make these decisions as a group. You make better decisions if you can get everyone to participate in the process. You cannot hand over every single governance decision to your employees. This will end up in pure chaos and even worse. But what you can do, is provide them with a framework (purpose, vision and values). You can even provide them with tools and processes. And than let them organize work within those boundaries.
Tear down silos
The silo mentality is defined as the mindset present when certain people or departments do not share information with others in the same company. This type of mentality will reduce efficiency in the overall operation, reduce morale, and decreases productivity. This is not an easy thing to tackle, especially in older organizations. But there are a few things you can do.
Encourage and explain diversity and seek divergence. If everyone in a team has the same opinion, you’re definitely missing a perspective. So look for divergent perspectives. Try to really understand the other arguments. Than move on. Make sure that everyone on board understands what their coworkers are doing at the company. It will help them get a deeper understanding of the different contexts and perspectives. Organize sessions to explain each other’s jobs and roles so people start to get the big picture.
Work with multi-disciplinary teams as much as you can. In every project, internal or external, try to assemble a team with members form different departments. As a matter of fact, try not to have departments at all. Replace them with knowledge centers. Build your teams as squads with every necessary skill to serve the customer right there! This will increase communication and decrease the number of meetings and other corporate stuff that usually slows down productivity. Start with internal projects, e.g. HR projects. You’ll see it in action. If you want some inspiration: check the tribal organization of Spotify.
As to the workplace: try to do the same thing. In every decision you make concerning the design of your buildings, discourage people with the same area of expertise to go and sit together. Make it easy for them to move around and form temporary teams with other people.
This blog post is the second 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.
