Defining business culture

And when you are about to pursue some course of action that seems perfectly clear and right, yet you sense in your spirit another path being suggested with the force of quiet conviction, heed that conviction. Follow the alternate course, even if the change of plans appears to be absolute folly from the perspective of human wisdom.

~from Streams in the Desert, October 3

This morning, I awoke early with a few issues swirling in my head. For the past week, we have been soliciting applications for a Customer Success Manager. A job solicitation says a lot about a company. It describes the vision of a company, its culture, the benefits of working with the company, etc. Good solicitations should convey strong vision and excitement.

One of the most important aspects of a company is the “business culture.” Culture is an elusive thing. So long as a business culture is fundamentally “positive” one can fashion it in a variety of ways. Business culture reflects the priorities of the stake holders, which include founders, investors and employees. Yes, employees shape business culture.

A business culture has values that are either explicit or implied:

• Do you care about people (employees)?
• Are you “fast paced?”
• How do you make decisions?

The founder/s set the tone. Quakers, for example, make decisions by consensus. This is a very high standard that involves inclusiveness and consensus. The opposite extreme of the “positive models” is a benevolent dictator.

Among the non-positive models would be VC-induced dictatorial profit-only think. Another would be management by “leadership team” with a poor track record of achieving consensus. The business then suffers from silo functionality (poor interaction), poor buy in, poor communication, stagnation, and decline.

Perhaps the most important value is the one introduced in the book “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values” by Robert Persig. The author noted that there were two classes of motorcycles. The classes are epitomized, respectively, by BMW and Harley Davidson. The BMW riders have no interest in understanding the inner working of the motorcycle. For them, the motorcycle is valued for what it does. The second class of riders enjoys working on their motorcycle as much as riding it. These riders in interested the motorcycle for what it is. These riders form a bond with the motorcycle by understanding it and customizing it. The two riders represent different approaches to living with far reaching consequences in terms of priorities and the definition/s of success.

In the world of desktop/laptop computers, there are two competing operating systems: UNIX and DOS/Windows. Mac OS X kernel is based on the BSD LINUX, a form of UNIX. In the UNIX way, one uses a set of small highly specialized tools to achieve a task. One can produce outstanding results, quickly when one knows the tools. There is a certain elegance to the one line command line statements. This approach, which is called “hacking” is compatible with the second class of riders just mentioned. The second class of riders understand the individual components of the motorcycle, and work with them to produce a result.

The DOS/Windows approach abstracts away the underlying processes rather like the BMW motorcycle. One simply uses the package as a whole without concern for the parts. Persig would argue that in this approach “Zen” gets lost. Members of the tech community use the term “enterprise” to refer to cultural context that is embodied by this approach.

Depending on who is talking, hack and enterprise have positive or negative connotations. In common culture, hackers assumed to be nefarious (e.g. Russian hackers). A hack can also represent something that is patched up. On the other hand, a hacker possesses technical prowess, and can be a badge of honor or credential. A one line hack to accomplish some data extraction or data manipulation task is elegant. This harkens the notion of zen, which is a oneness with the world.

The technical community knows that enterprise software will never achieve the level of performance that is possible by a fully customized solution. To put it bluntly, using enterprise software is “slumming it.” since an enterprise product is generally a mass market solution. A business that adopts enterprise software often has a culture that is captured by the description “The Enterprise Business” — one that is resistant to change, requires multiple layers of approval, etc — clunky an beurocratic.

The Upshot

When an applicant claims proficiency in MS office as a technical skill this gives the impression that the applicant likes the “The Enterprise Business” model, which suffers from:

• dated (poor) communication methods
• slow
• lack of innovation

Common “Enterprise Businesses” include

• Federal bureaucracy
• Banking

Persons who have been employed in these businesses for a long time may not be inclined to the “fast paced” world of the tech startup or tech growth company.

Tooling

Modern productivity tooling of the fast-paced business includes:

• trello
• sketch
• slack
• G-docs
• markdown
• hangouts

This tooling enables speed and enhanced communication.

This tooling is a part of the culture at Wellzesta.