Key Drivers for Forming Culture within Your Startup
In a recent discussion with a CTO Co-founder of an 8-person software startup, we asked if they had done any work on their corporate culture. As with many other smaller organizations, the answer was "the culture will come together as we grow." Though plausible, countless research indicates that culture starts from the day the enterprise begins operation.
Culture is the "how" of what you do. It is the actions of your team. For example, how you use your workspace, the type of IT equipment you purchase, how you answer your phone, the discipline you instill while developing your prototype, where you park your bike, etc. These demeanors will define and cement your company's culture. Yet, culture often confounds executives because much of it is anchored in unspoken behaviors, mindsets, and social patterns.
Your startup's culture is what makes your company unique. It is the company's "personality," and it motivates every facet of your organization's performance. Below are key drivers in forming your company culture and increasing the probability of your startup's success.
Understand "YOU": Yourself, your co-founders, and your leadership team will be the builders of your culture. Your actions will dictate how your team operates and conducts business. Reflect the picture of your desired culture, and you will see your attitude in your employees' actions. It won't take long (maybe 5-10 employees) to recognize the budding culture. Consider creating a "Culture Playbook" for your employees.
Recognize your customer and market: Strive to deliver a "wow!" Determine the need of your customers and market, then imbue your products and processes with solutions geared to exceed expectations at every touchpoint they have with your organization. The more challenging the problem you solve, the higher the margins you'll command.
Give your employees meaning and purpose: Articulate the difference your organization makes to the world and highlight the benefit your company provides. Connect every employee's contributions to your goal so individuals understand how their work matters. Foster a respectful work environment where employees are valued and can bring their authentic selves to work.
Over communicate: Listen and talk and do it often. Tap informal and formal communication channels to hear the unspoken and reinforce the known. Innovate ways of connecting teams and creating rituals in a hybrid work world.
Respect, appreciate, and celebrate your wins: Broadcast stories of success and recognize employees when they do splendid work. Give them room to take risks and allow for safe failure. Help employees understand their roles, build systems to connect them together, and let them know they are essential to your wins.
Foster a culture of discipline and accountability: Permeate "do what you say and say what you do" in your actions. Articulate the power structure that makes decisions and the process for how they are made. Hire right and instill the analytical, straightforward, and fair rigor in anything needing management.
Building a company from scratch is the easiest way to form culture. It's changing culture once it's ingrained; that's hard. Leaders eager to create successful organizations spend hours developing detailed, thoughtful plans for strategy and execution. But if they don't incorporate the culture's power and dynamics, their plans will likely not materialize. As the famous saying goes, "culture eats strategy for breakfast."
Let Countsy help you navigate through the cultural dynamic >