The recognition of corporate culture
by Miki SaxonImage credit: MeHere
What a difference a dozen years make.
When RampUp Solutions started in San Francisco convincing entrepreneurs, let alone VCs, that culture was of critical importance, that corporate culture needed to be architected as carefully and consciously as any product and that hires needed to fit the culture and not just the needed skill set it felt like we were swimming against a tsunami.
We were, but that was then and this is now.
Now people such as Silicon Valley venture capitalist David W. Pidwell give public talks at major universities on “The Attributes of Building a Corporate Culture,” focusing on how entrepreneurs are often so overwhelmed with starting the business that they overlook creating the corporate culture. Pidwell believes that corporate culture provides the core values, policies and practices that define employee behavior and internal operations.
Culture underlies equally the success or the failure of companies of all sizes. In larger companies incoming CEOs ignore the corporate culture at their own risk and are often dumped for either botching it or not changing it.
How important is culture to you?