What I’ve learned from leading HR executives on startup culture: and it’s not what you think
Recently, we hosted at Vertex HR Club with two incredible women to address one of the most complex topics facing Israeli tech companies: Organizational Culture and DNA. Our guests were Orit Goren, COO of JFrog, one of the fastest growing startups in Israel and Michal Hiss Oshman, who is in charge of Learning and Development at Facebook London. In the room we had a mix of senior VPs and Directors from our portfolio which represent companies in sizes that range from 10 to 1200 employees, between Seed — IPO stages.
Company culture always seems to be a sensitive and complex subject and it’s important to understand that there is no one recipe. Each company possesses its own DNA that renews itself dynamically over years of growth and development.
This is a short summary of the insights found during the session.
When does culture become ‘a thing’?
Some companies define their culture from day one, but for others, culture becomes especially significant when the company starts scaling and it’s time to recruit in larger numbers. At first, recruiting is based on your close circles such as friends of friends or former colleagues. For Israeli companies, using a military unit’s alumni network to find a developer or two is one thing, but recruiting full teams of sales persons, designers and developers is a whole different story that demands time and effort.
From what we have seen, the most common and effective approach would be to explore what describes best the mini-culture of the initial group that founded and work at the company and try to make it official — define and write down what you like, what is working and successful, and recruit other people from other circles based on these principals. You don’t need to replicate your employees, but rather find new employees that believe and fit your set of values.
Another trigger can be when you open a branch in a different country or region — you would hope to sustain the same culture that worked for you in your home country. Otherwise it becomes complicated to collaborate and work together, as well as confusing for clients around the world. You want everyone to feel that despite speaking to different representatives in different countries, the attitude, atmosphere and relationships are synergistic and compatible.
But this is not the case all the time. Airbnb created their culture before they hired anyone and Twilio did it when they had 6 employees. It really depends on your personal approach and preferences.
Why is it important? Because culture is in your company’s interest. It serves the business and not vice versa
(1) Company culture is there starting day 1. In the academic world, culture is defined as ‘the social behavior and norms found in human societies’, meaning the moment you and at least one more person open a company and start interacting, your company’s culture is beginning to take shape. It’s there, don’t ignore it — cultivate it, document it.
(2) The DNA of the company is compiled by founders, executives and employees, who act as your ‘cultural agents’. Making the environment more engaging and complete will help your business. Happy employees feel they belong and therefore create a better atmosphere, better products and a positive working environment.
(3) A good and strongly defined culture can help you in the recruitment process and make sure you bring in not only the ‘best’ people on board, but rather those who match your company’s DNA the most.
(4) A candidate gets their first impression of company’s culture, working environment and main values by the first meetings, discussions and the way the process is built. This could play a significant factor in the decision making whether to join one company or another. In some cases, it even becomes a major reason for choosing one workplace over another.
How do you do it?
Start with some basic questions: what kind of business goals do we want to achieve in the coming years? who do we hire and how many people we are looking to recruit? how we treat each other and our clients? how do we react to opportunities and threats? how do we make decisions? what messages does our company try to communicate (externally and internally)? who do we want to be when we get older as a company? Remember, culture serves the business!
Now, be an observer and start to listen what works well, what do you want to preserve. Pay attention to behaviors, how decisions are made, how teams work together, what are the types of people you recruit or fire, and why.
There are a few ways to define your values. Both JFrog and Facebook used the “Bottom up” approach and involved their employees and not only their core leadership. Since you are trying to define your identity, ask your employees how they would describe the company? What is the company for them? Some companies, such as JFrog, did the same also with their partners and clients. Now, when you have this mixture of sentences and words, start to aggregate and define the values that come out and then, distill them.
A good piece of advice I heard at Jeff Lawson’s, the CEO of Twilio, lecture was to pick “human actionable words” as values. Verbs are action-oriented, resonate better and feel more implementable. For example: ‘Be Humble’ versus ‘Respect’, which is more actionable and more specific version of respect.
Key lessons
You can’t ‘force’ culture without actually practicing it
If you have all your strategy meetings behind closed doors. If you don’t share any news with your employees and keep your future plans a secret — ‘transparency’ or ‘openness’ are not part of your game, and even if you write it down on all the walls, it’s not going to happen.
Don’t fake it until you make it
Your HR manager is not a magician. They can’t fake it till they make it — culture needs to be a natural result that develops over time and not forced upon the company.
Companies are the image of their founders
If you are one of the founders, first take a look at your own personality traits. The way you cope, your strengths, and weaknesses will probably be reflected in your company’s culture. If you are not the founder, try to analyze the founding team and the first ‘core employees’.
Companies are often a reflection of the executive team. If your founder is coming from a design background, it will impact the way the company builds its products and designs. If the CEO is more aggressive and competitive, it will affect the company’s behavior (on the agility side and on getting deals). If the CEO is coming from a marketing background, it will play a significant role in the companies’ strategy and focus during the building stages of the company.
Bottom line — it needs to come from the founders and executives. Sit down once you feel it’s time to define your company’s culture, involve your employees and write down what you think are the most important facets of your company. Make sure you actually follow what you preach, don’t “create” or copy your values, but identify and embody them and the rest will follow.
