"Day 1" strategies for a winning workplace experience
Discussing the impact of early company culture development
DEAR STAGE 2: I’m the co-founder of an early stage startup and we’re about to start hiring. Our first non-founder hire will be someone in a customer facing role — some sales, some customer success, some user research. This is a very visible role for the company and we’re thinking a lot about how to hire the right cultural fit for our small team. We know this first hire is critical and sets the tone for future team building. How can we lay the groundwork today to foster a strong culture in the future? ~Culture Champion
DEAR CULTURE CHAMPION: I love this question! Culture is living, breathing and ever evolving, but you have to be intentional about your values from the very early days. I’m going to tackle this question in a few parts:
Defining your company values
Hiring people who can thrive in and contribute to your culture
Evolving your traditions
I have the honor of speaking with hundreds of founders and CEOs each year and getting exposed to the unique approaches they take to establishing a set of values, how they talk about culture, and their different approaches to hiring.
Defining your company values
It all starts with you and your co-founder(s). What kind of company and team do you want to build? We recommend taking some time away from the day to day to reflect - first separately and then together. Better to try to capture each of your individual thoughts to build a master list of ideas, which you can then distill down to a succinct set of values. You may also find it helpful to consider other perspectives or even bring in third party opinions - customers, board members, angel investors, early employees, etc…?
Looking for more inspiration? Nick Mehta, CEO of Gainsight and Stage 2 LP recently shared how his team came up with Gainsight's original mission statement and company values. Check out his take here. Gainsight recently placed first on the Glassdoor Best Places to Work list for 2023 with their 5 core company values:
Golden Rule: Treat people the way you would want to be treated
Stay Thirsty: Strive for greatness
Childlike Joy: Bring the inner child in you to work everyday
Success for All: A tireless pursuit of success for our community
Shoshin: Start with a beginner’s mind
Hiring people who can thrive in and contribute to your culture
Natasha Vernier and Katie Savitz of Cable took their work around values a step further and defined an Operating System. Natasha shares, “The concept behind company values is great, but so often they are hard to implement. How many employees can recite their company values? How do you make sure they are actually used to make decisions? And how do you align or combine the values and the culture you are trying to build? At Cable, we wanted to make sure that we created a way of working that reflected who we try to be, how we want to work, and the things that we believe will make us better at our jobs.”
For each of their 5 principles (Be Kind, Make Transparent Decisions, Communicate Clearly, Aim to Improve, Empower Through Responsibility) they have also defined a why, a how, an is not, and some ways we want to help people achieve the principle as the company grows.
Why do we like this Operating System?
It’s thoughtfully structured: This is more than a list of aspirational values on a page. Over time, Cable has iterated on the best ways to bring their values to life. They want employees to understand the “why” behind the “what.
It’s actionable: The “why”, “how”, “is not”, and “ways we want to help” help employees live the values every day. Examples (particularly the “is not” section) are easier to grasp, especially for new hires.
It’s transparent: By making their operating system public and including in every job description, they are being completely transparent about who they are as a company. Candidates can come up to speed quickly and decide if this operating system resonates with them before engaging in an interview process.
BONUS: They have also defined a “culture interview” as a key step in their hiring process. Right now, that interview is normally completed with a founder as the final interview. They want to get to know the whole person, not just the work person and dedicate real time to understanding how each candidate could contribute to their culture.
Evolving your traditions
Team lunch on Mondays, weekly All-Hands meetings, daily stand-ups, new-hire breakfasts with the CEO, quarterly off-sites, etc… all companies have traditions that are important to them. I believe that these are critical to building a bond and camaraderie between employees and making everyone feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves. But many of these traditions can be hard to scale.
With each new hire, things change and you need to ask yourself which of your traditions need to evolve? The Monday team lunch at a local restaurant may need to break into smaller groups or evolve into a lunch ordered into the office. The daily stand-up might become a weekly All Hands or a number of departmental/functional stand-ups.
Each of these evolutions should be viewed as progress. Rather than mourning the loss of an old tradition, evolve it in line with your values to ensure your traditions survive
Hope this helps as you set out to define your values. We hope you post them to your website loud and proud — excited to see what comes of this exercise.
Until next week!