A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read allIf the Shoe Fits posts here
If you work, no matter the industry, company size or the level, you’ve been hearing a lot about the importance of culture, especially over the last 10 years or so, most recently from investors.
Bosses know that ignoring culture puts them at peril, but the lesson is just sinking in for many founders.
Culture is a lot more than foosball tables, fancy food and kegs on Friday.
Culture is the values and ethics of the founders made understandable to all.
Sustainable culture is like a tripod, with customers, investors, and employees comprising each leg.
Founders often tend to focus on two of the legs — investors and customers — leaving the third leg to get along more or less on its own.
The problem is that when you over-favor one leg it will get too long; ignore another leg and it will shrink, but the end result is the same—the tripod tips over.
Simply put, concentrating excessively on one leg or another won’t assure success.
Worse, the third leg, employees, is often the shortest, scrawniest, and weakest leg of the tripod.
However, hip perks and a great ‘cool’ factor doesn’t always convert to loyalty and loyalty is bankable.
Founders who doubt loyalty’s bankability should read Frederick Reichheld, who’s written numerous books on the economic effects of loyalty, and shown in carefully researched studies that a 5% improvement in retention translates to a 25%-100% gain in earnings. (Loyalty Rules).
Loyalty happens because people like and trust what the company says it believes in and which is embodied in its culture.
I’m a renew (just fixed my office chair instead of replacing it), reuse (I love garage sales) and recycle (I save stuff that should be recyclable, but isn’t, until it is) nut and have driven a few friends nuts with my recycling “encouragement.”
So it’s no surprise that Tom Szaky, founder/CEO of TerraCycle is my hero and on several levels.
First, because where the rest of the planet saw garbage Tom saw potential profit.
Second, because he turned down a million dollar early stage investment, because it meant going against his/his company’s values.
Third, because his faith held and he didn’t take no for an answer.
Started in 2001, TerraCycle is the tortoise to the multiplicity of Net hares like Groupon, but in years to come it will be TerraCycle’s global reach that will truly change the world.
River economies (above) have materials, energy, and value run through communities, leaving little value behind. Lake economies (below) pool resources and value locally for longer lingering value and impact.
Join me tomorrow and meet the entrepreneur at the forefront of lake formation.
Last spring I wrote that passion sustains me and keeps my writing, but that even passion needs a day off now and then.
But what happens with there is no day off; when passion is continually cranked up?
When passion runs wild it can lose touch with reality.
You can see the aftermath of unchecked passion in companies whose positional leaders were so focused on their vision that they allowed nothing to stand in the way and the political leaders who are more focused on spreading their ideology than fixing their country.
Today is Earth Day and much will be written on what it will take to create a sustainable future for all life on our planet and it will be written by those far more knowledgeable than I.
The basis of the actions that must happen to assure a sustainable future is the MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) required to enable it. MAP is composed of three parts that are formed over time starting in early childhood. Mindset and attitude are the main focus; they are the ones most commonly written about and discussed.
But it is philosophy upon which the other two rest making it the most important and it is philosophy that most often is assumed or ignored—especially when it comes to young kids. After all, developing philosophy requires high level reasoning and common wisdom says that young kids can’t do it.
Matthew Lipman, then a professor at Columbia University, argued that children could think abstractly at an early age and that philosophical questioning could help them develop reasoning skills. … Professor Lipman’s view opposed that of the child-development theorist Jean Piaget, who asserted that children under 12 were not capable of abstract reasoning.
To build a truly sustainable future is more likely to happen if the changes required are driven by the ‘P’ in MAP, rather than by unthinking dogma and ideology.
You would think that anything that helped kids develop the kind of life skills that make for better citizens would be welcome, but the ability to conceptualize and reason are no longer the focus of education.
…many school officials either find the subject too intimidating or believe it does not fit with the test-driven culture of public education these days.
Building a sustainable future isn’t a function of multiple choice questions, so we, today’s adults, had better choose wisely the tools that are required and then see to it that the tomorrow’s adults can use them—or there won’t be much future for their children.
Culture is at the forefront of the corporate mindset.
Almost every article and comment regarding the workplace is, directly or indirectly, a comment on culture—what works, or not; what’s needed, or not. Want to innovate? Change the culture. Increase retention? Fix/keep the culture.
For Boards, CEOs, executives and managers at all levels it’s a case of ignore culture at your peril.
Keeping people (customers, employees and investors) is the key to sustainable success and culture is one of the main reasons that people join/buy/invest in a company—and its demise is a major reason why they leave.
Think of a stool with customers, investors/stockholders, and employees comprising the legs and culture being the seat that unites them. Over-favor one leg and it will get too long, ignore another leg and it will shrink, but the end result is the same—the stool tips over.
For everything that’s been written regarding creating good, let alone great, cultures you need to start with the basics:
Open, honest, constant communications
Never kill the messenger
Accept and act on input from all levels
Walk your talk
Sure, there’s tons more you can do, but I guarantee that if you do only these four you’ll be well on your way to creating a positive, sustainable culture.
What do you do to help create a positive culture in your company?
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
If you work, no matter the industry, company size or the level, you’ve been hearing a lot about the importance of culture, especially over the last 10 years or so, most recently from investors.
The basis of the actions that must happen to assure a sustainable future is the MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) required to enable it. MAP is composed of three parts that are formed over time starting in early childhood. Mindset and attitude are the main focus; they are the ones most commonly written about and discussed.
