You are browsing the archive for culture.

Avatar of Evan Hamilton

by Evan Hamilton

Culture comes from the top…including bad culture.

March 4, 2013 in Company Culture

This is part of a two-month series on the importance of company culture. Find more posts about culture here.

Culture can be nurtured and maintained by the group, but the leadership of a company is going to have a huge affect on it.

Don’t believe it? Check out what The Wall Street Journal has to say about the influence of bosses on our lives:

“The culture of office politics can alter our perceptions of faces and expressions in subtle ways. Normally, we recognize our own face first in a group of photographs, for instance. Under some circumstances, though, it is the picture of our boss that we respond to first, in an involuntary reaction that overrules our usual social reflexes.” [Tweet this]

Sign that says "my boss told me to change the stupid sign so I did"If that makes you a little uncomfortable, I don’t blame you! With this in mind, it’s not surprising that 65% of Americans would choose a better boss over a raise. [Tweet this] I can speak from experience here: having a bad boss was a drag on my whole life and attitude. Having a good boss here at UserVoice has immensely increased my happiness, productivity, and high-five rate.

With bosses being so influential, problems can arise when they don’t follow the company values. Often this isn’t an intentional slight…it may be that they believe in the values but then forget them when going about their daily business. Unfortunately, staff see this and either explicitly or unconsciously model their behavior after it.

Culture is largely about attitude, which then leads to actions. This effect can be very dangerous, and turn company values into the shallow statements that some skeptics think they are

Some examples:

Failure:

“We don’t have paid time off – just take as much as you want!”
…but then the boss never takes a vacation, and the staff feel guilty taking their own time off.

“We give our staff 20% of their time to build whatever they want!”
…but then the boss pushes the team to get a huge project done in a short amount of time, making that 20% free time unlikely. I’ll admit that we tried 20% time and ran into this exact problem, so we stopped our 20% time program.

“We really care about our customers.”
…but then the boss says that a customer using Internet Explorer 6 is “a stupid idiot.” The staff hear this and thus find it hard to treat that customer with respect. Hell, even a boss rolling their eyes can product the same effect.

Don’t get too depressed, though! For every failure story, there are plenty of success stories.

Success:

”Don’t take yourselves too seriously.”
Our CEO, Richard White, follows through on this value regularly, making us all a lot more comfortable cracking jokes in emails and meetings. Case in point…

 

“Apple is all about consistent, simple design.”
Whether you dug his style or not, Steve Jobs never failed to dress with as much simplicity as he gave his products.

“Amazon is all about innovation.”
While not always (but sometimes) the actual inventor, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is constantly involved in groundbreaking projects like the 10,000-year clock and the Blue Origin spaceflight company.

It’s funny. I asked my followers on Twitter if they knew of any leaders who really lived up to their values. A lot of well-meaning employees named their own bosses. But when I asked them what exactly they do to live up to these values, many didn’t have an answer. Their bosses obviously care about the company values. But frankly, that’s not enough.

How to follow through? Richard says:

“I probably learned most about being a manager from relationship counseling and observing the anti-patterns of my past bosses. At the end of the day it’s all about the relationships you have with your employees (and paying attention to the relationships between employees) so a lot of it carries over. It’s not rocket science. You have to be able to be able to truly empathize with those you manage.”

Is this tough? Absolutely. Welcome to being a leader. The little things you do and say have a big effect. If you can’t keep yourself in check, then you might want to reconsider your leadership role.

Tags: , , , No Comments »

Avatar of Evan Hamilton

by Evan Hamilton

Culture skepticism

March 4, 2013 in Company Culture

This is part of a two-month series on the importance of company culture. Find more posts about culture here.

It’s easy to be skeptical about culture. It’s kind of a corny concept…culture, values, believing in a cause. And out here in startupland there are plenty of companies who may try to get the benefits of culture without really embracing it.

“We have a team of people who are responsible for organizing frequent employee social events, maintaining the office ‘feel’, and making sure work is a great place to hang out. We get served organic, vegan, farm-raised, nutritious lunches every day at work.

What your culture might actually be saying is… Our employees must be treated as spoiled, coddled children that cannot perform their own administrative functions. [Tweet this] Because our office has more amenities than home life, our employees work much longer hours and we are able to extract more value from them for the same paycheck.”
kitten hanging from branch with text "hang in there"-Pretty Little State Machine

There are plenty of other criticisms in that post that might make you blush…either for your own sake, or that of a friend who works at a company with “cool” culture that isn’t really cool. Reading the post, you’re thrown into doubt: is my culture actually terrible? Are we hypocrites? Is “culture” just the same old crappy work environment with a happy kitten picture plastered onto it?

But then you read a comment like this one:

“Forgive me, but a lot of us live in bum-fuck little towns where we slave away with the ‘old white guys’ who don’t know the difference between Reddit and ‘read it’.

We’re lucky to get a mere scolding if we’re caught browsing A List Apart—oh, no … wait, we can’t … it’s BLOCKED because ‘it’s a blog‘. [Tweet this]

The closest thing I get to ‘culture’ is listening to Florence + The Machine with my earbuds, streaming to my phone since Pandora – you guessed it – is BLOCKED. [Tweet this]

So forgive me if I’m jaded and cynical. Work sucks, small towns suck, and being stuck in one sucks even more.”
-Don Schenck

There’s some context for you. Yes, our cultures could be better. Yes, some companies misuse culture. But we’re still creating a much more empowering, fun, and engaging work environment than Don’s workplace. And the companies that are doing it really well seem like the most fun places to work in the world (check out my interview with BoomTown if you haven’t yet.)

Let’s strive to make our culture great and realize when it’s not. But just because yours isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it’s not 210% better than the traditional corporate culture!

Tags: , No Comments »

Avatar of Evan Hamilton

by Evan Hamilton

An interview with BoomTown: how everything revolves around culture

March 1, 2013 in Company Culture

This is part of a two-month series on the importance of company culture. Find more posts about culture here.

BoomTown is a company that might be called Salesforce for realtors. It doesn’t sound like a sexy company (neither does a customer service & customer feedback company). But when you talk to them or even go to their website, you realize they exude energy, a unique style, and an obsession with company culture. I recently had the opportunity to interview BoomTown’s Julie Edwards and Tim Wolf about this obsession.

A little background: BoomTown is located in South Carolina. Although Julie’s role is Manager of Client Services and Tim is Director of Engineering, they both consider themselves a big part of the cultural movement at BoomTown.

Evan: First off, could you describe the culture at BoomTown?
Julie EdwardsJulie: If I had to sum up the culture at BoomTown, I’d wrap that up in the phrase “The BoomTown Family.” People here will not only end up being some of your best friends, but they’ll communicate openly with you, just like a family will. We’re a smart fun group of people striving to create amazing experiences. It’s easy to accomplish big things when you’re excited to come to work.

E: When did culture become a big focus for you?
J: Well, when we were 10 people it was clear that we had a very specific, strong culture. But we really felt we were too small for any sort of formalized values. We felt it would be a little too soon. But once we hit 35 people and growing, we realized we were in a dangerous place where we could lose our culture if we didn’t proactively try to maintain it. So we took the plunge.
Tim WolfeTim: I was very skeptical and reluctant initially. I came from a very corporate background where company values meant nothing. But absolutely everyone at the company was clearly bought into both the values and to formalizing them, so I became a convert.

E: How did you figure out what actual values went on your list?
J: We used the Mountains and Valleys method (made by Culture Sync and mentioned in Tony Hsieh’s book.) Basically it asks you to evaluate your happy and lowest moments as an individual and look at what contributed to you being that way. From there certain themes came out like a lot of us were unhappy when we weren’t empowered or most happy when we were empowered. We took those themes of what was important to a majority of us and turned them into our core values. [Editor's note: check out our tips for defining values here.]

boomtown team holding up values

The BoomTown team holding up their values

E: Do you make culture a part of your hiring process?
T: Absolutely. We have regular interviews and then we have separate culture interviews, where we’ll grab a couple of random employees and have them talk to the potential hire. Often the first round of interviewers let the culture interviewers know what values they’re concerned about.
J: They basically just shoot the shit, try to get to know the potential hire on a more personal level. Questions like “what do you love and hate about your current work environment” can get some very telling responses from people.
T: It’s not just “will I like you” but: “Will you be a jerk? Will you live the same values we do?” While obviously avoiding anything that’s not legal, like questions about religion, marital status, etc. [Editor's note: check out our tips on hiring for culture fit here.]

Employees dressed as cowboys

Tim & his sidekick

E: And does culture actually sometimes prevent you from hiring someone?
J: Definitely. If we see red flags, we generally won’t hire them.
T: And if we do have concerns, we sometimes mention them. We say “listen, we like you a lot and we’d like to try this out but we have a very specific, strong culture here. If we don’t feel you’re a fit – or if you don’t feel we’re a fit for you – then it’s time to move on. We’ll help you find some connections, help write your resume, whatever.”

E: Have you actually fired people because of a culture misfit?
T: Yep. Some people get 3 paychecks and they’re out. It’s just not worth it to have a bad fit.
J: And it’s not about being controlling or pretentious. It’s about sharing passions. You don’t just want someone to be right for BoomTown…you want BoomTown to be right for them. We don’t want them to be unhappy here.

E: How do you maintain your culture?
T: Well, everyone’s empowered to do it. It’s not out of line to pull someone aside and say “hey, can I talk to you in private? I feel like we weren’t quite living up to our values there.”
J: And we just try to live it every day, even when it’s not easy. We had a weekend where we lost some customer emails and we told them the truth about it. It shows the staff that we mean it when we say that “communicating honestly and openly” is one of our values. And the customers loved our transparency.

E: If someone is trying to build a culture at their company, what is the #1 thing you’d tell them to do?
J: Great question! For me, it’s listen to yourself first. Find what’s important to you, then communicate, communicate, communicate. See what your teammates have in common with you as far as what is really important goes. Then, make sure you’re committed before jumping in.

Want to learn more about BoomTown’s culture? They’ll be attending UserConf NYC! Buy a ticket today and let them know you’d like to meet them.

BoomTown employees prepping for the i5K marathon

BoomTown employees prepping for the i5K marathon

Tags: , , No Comments »

Avatar of Evan Hamilton

by Evan Hamilton

A culture horror story

February 19, 2013 in Company Culture

scared woman in a movie theaterBen (name changed to protect the innocent) spent 20 years in the US Navy before moving into civilian work. At this point, he told me, he had seen “a lot of cultures.” “Culture in the Navy – maybe most places – is driven by those in command. There are a lot of different types of commanders in the Navy.” After living in this strict universe, Ben was ready for a more relaxed environment. He didn’t really care where he worked; his wife wanted to end up in North Carolina, so he took a job with a tech company in Raleigh.

“I now realize that the warning signs were there immediately,” Ben told me. There was no onboarding process or introduction. Ben was given a desk and thrown into the fray. On his second day, he had his first encounter with The CTO.

The CTO had previously been The Founder. We’ve discussed how leaders are a huge part of the cultural vibe previously, and this was no different. The Founder had a short stint as The CEO, but when deemed unfit for that job he was “shoehorned” into the role of CTO. He started setting the foundation for the culture when he founded the company, and continued to singularly define it as The CTO.

Ben’s first experience with The CTO was illustrative. Ben was in a coworker’s cubicle, talking about something work-related. The CTO, who he had never met before, interrupted and attempted to push past him to speak to Ben’s coworker. Literally push. Not ask him to move, but push. The man was an angry, self-important steamroller.

The culture that The CTO built was one of self-preservation. He wanted things done his way, and if they weren’t he would throw a fit. Ben remembers him once blowing up and saying “fine, I’ll just sit here and do nothing, I’ll do whatever you want.” Like an angsty teenager.

Sign that says "rule no 1 - the boss is always right rule no 2 - if the boss is wrong, see rule no 1"It would be one thing if this just meant people didn’t like him and avoided him. But again, it built a culture of people trying to protect themselves from him. That meant not innovating; he hated any ideas that didn’t come from him. That meant not acting on customer feedback; he didn’t think it was as important as his ideas. That meant not doing MUCH; better to do nothing if it meant he wouldn’t spot you.

It’s easy to say “well, this isn’t culture, this is just a bad apple.” But it was a culture. Before Ben took over leading the Field Services team, most of what they did was commiserate. All day. They were good people and saw solutions to many of the problems in the company, but they were culturally trained to do nothing. It was “like a florist being forced to watch their greenhouse burned to the ground while they hold a fire extinguisher in their hand.”

Ben, a military man if nothing else, didn’t think his people deserved that. He defended his team, getting into fight after fight with The CTO. He begged the CEO – a genuinely good person – to get The CTO in line or out of the company. It wasn’t going to happen…neither the board nor the CEO could do it due to the amount of stock The CTO owned.

In the end, Ben managed to insulate his team. He took a beating while they actually tried to help customers and fix the things that needed to be fixed. He did something rather remarkable: he built a new culture within the existing one. Customers loved his team, and he suspects Field Services was often the only thing keeping some of these customers from leaving or – as many threatened – from suing the company.

But one man can only take a beating for so long, and Ben finally moved on. He ended up at Target…one of the primary reasons being that “culture was a huge part of the interview process.” Ben beats himself up for not realizing what he was getting into, or making more of a difference, or getting out sooner…but from an outsider’s perspective you can see that he did as well as one could in that situation.

The company, Ben says, is fairly close to bankruptcy. He knows that most of the employees (many of them his friends) are looking for new jobs. And without him leading the Field Services team, he expects many of the hanging-by-a-thread customers will leave. “It’s a shame,” Ben says. “It’s a great technology and could have been a successful company. But not with that culture.”

Scream photo via Bigstock.
Sign photo courtesy of Valerie Everett.

Tags: , No Comments »

Avatar of Evan Hamilton

by Evan Hamilton

Do ALL of your departments treat customers equally?

February 11, 2013 in Company Culture

This is part of a two-month series on the importance of company culture. Find more posts about culture here.

Recently I read the kind of story that makes a customer care professional’s blood run cold. From Adrian Swinscoe’s blog (emphasis added by UserCentered):

“It [turns out] that last December there was a problem with Karen Millen’s online card processing system and, although I received an email saying payment had been taken, they had [actually] failed to take the correct amount from my credit card.

Four and a half months later they are now sending me curt emails saying I had ‘kept’ the clothes and not paid for them. I felt like they were blaming me for their error and accusing me, in effect, of stealing from them. They refused to acknowledge that it was their mistake and that it was an unacceptable delay. No one called me personally to apologise.

I have been a loyal Karen Millen customer for years. I will never buy anything from them again. Ever.”

Sign that says finance with half a dollar bill stuck to it and "50c" written on the billMost likely, Karen Millen customer support agents are better at support than this. Hell, they’re a high-end brand…they probably have fantastic support agents. But the finance department clearly never got the great training or cultural focus that support did.

Tragic, isn’t it? All that money, time, and training spent making sure their customer service was great…and one uncaring finance employee ruins it all and loses a loyal and evangelistic customer.

So are all your departments treating customers the same? A recent Ask Your Target Market survey sponsored by UserCentered said a whopping 59% of employees think so. [Tweet this] You’re probably in that group. But do you really know? Have you actually explored what happens to a customer, for example, if they’re late to pay? I know I certainly hadn’t thought about this until recently. I found out our accounting firm at the time had been chasing down these late payments! They’re nice people but not our people, working under our values. How could I count on them to be empathetic? (We now do this all in-house.)

Late payments is a bit of an extreme (though still relevant) example. But what about your sales team? They’re trained to sell…are they trained to care? Are they only being nice when it closes a deal, or are they even nice to people who end up choosing a competitor? These employees talk to just as many people as your support team, and often in more public settings. If they’re not living the same values, you’re liable to end up with a situation like the one above.

Train ALL your employees in company culture and values (including edge cases like the finance department). You never know who might talk to a customer or potential customer. If you don’t have everyone on the same page, then all the work you do in the Support and Community departments could be wasted.

Photo courtesy of eliduke.

Tags: , , No Comments »

Avatar of Evan Hamilton

by Evan Hamilton

Tacos & discouraging company culture

February 5, 2013 in Company Culture

This is part of a two-month series on the importance of company culture. Find more posts about culture here.

Tacos being clinked together like glassesAs I discussed in my post on mapping out company values, your culture isn’t and can’t be what just one person thinks or wants. This means that, at some point, cultural practices may become common that you, as a manager, may not have expected or especially wanted.

Like a plant, you can’t tell culture how to grow. You can try to guide it, but you can’t control it fully (except by killing it).

One could look at trying to stop culture change as negative reinforcement. Negative reinforcement – providing negative stimulus until the correct behavior is matched – can work, but can also have downsides. One study shows increased learning during negative reinforcement sessions…but also increased “inappropriate behavior”. In other words, you can be negative about behaviour until your staff complies, but they’ll act out in other ways. [Tweet this]

Here’s my example: when I worked at a previous job, we moved from the moderately-hip downtown Mountain View to the fairly boring Redwood City. The adjustment was hard, especially when it came to lunch options.

map of taco locationsThat is, until we found out that Redwood City has the largest number of taquerias per capita. Being foodies and techies, we launched a grand plan: every Tuesday we would go to a new taqueria, then add it to a custom Google Map along with a rating. We called it Taco Tuesday. You can find the map here.

This was great fun and united the whole team: devs and marketing alike. Seeing as how some of the taquerias were far from the office, our Tuesday lunches would often stretch to 1.5 hours.

When our CEO discovered most of the company gone, he was very perturbed. He asked what was going on and the practice was explained. And, as I remember it, we got a stern word of warning about leaving for so long.

Our CEO didn’t want a culture of people who took a 1.5 hour lunch. That’s what he saw. What we saw was some fun in our day and better connections to our coworkers. At the end of the day, that’s worth extra-long lunches. [Tweet this]

If the extra lunchtime was truly damaging things, he could have tried to retain the cultural benefit and lessen the downside by offering to have the company sponsor Taco Tuesday, but limit it to once or twice a month. Instead, he created intense dissatisfaction in the company and damaged an evolving culture.

Does this mean you should accept everything your employees do? Certainly not…you should discourage truly destructive or problematic trends. But be sure to look at them through the lens of culture-building first. Tacos might be more important than you think.

Taco photo courtesy of Alejandro Lavinjr.

Tags: , , , , No Comments »

Avatar of Evan Hamilton

by Evan Hamilton

Defining your company values

January 30, 2013 in Company Culture

This is part of a two-month series on the importance of company culture. Find more posts about culture here.

Zappos's value: create fun and a little weirdness

One of Zappos values, as displayed in their HQ

The other day I briefly touched on the importance writing out your company values, so I thought I’d dive into the process in a little more detail.

Writing down values for your company may seem a little corny (in the age of skepticism, saying you “stand for something” is rare) and a little unnecessary (“we know our values just fine!”). But it’s an immensely powerful way to help guide the company culture in the right direction.

I want to emphasize that no one person sets the values of a company. Try to do that and you’ll get so much pushback you end up halfway across the street. Instead, you need to work with your whole company to develop them.

My steps:

1. Send out a survey to the staff.

Ask what phrases, values, and attitudes they think your company stands for. Try not to structure it too much, as you want honest answers. Consider making it anonymous so people aren’t self-conscious.

2. Get thoughts from your leadership team.

They’ll certainly be a big influence; they are pushing a vision which should be part of your values. Of course, if none of your employees echo the leadership’s thoughts, something is wrong.

3. Dig through responses to find the common threads that will become your values.

Company value: Eat our own dog food (and like it too)

These may be phrased slightly differently, but you’ll find common answers. Pare these down into a set of values. Don’t choose too many. If people can’t remember the company values, how are they supposed to follow them? Zappos‘s original employee-generated list had 37 which were cut down to 10, we have 7 (which I still think may be too many). Write a brief explanation of the definition and importance of each value (it’s easy for a single sentence to be misconstrued).

An important note: choose unique values and unique phrasings. Nobody gives a damn that your company cares about something generic like “leadership”. Much more compelling and interesting is a company that says “don’t be a dick”. It’s a lot easier to remember, too.
 
 

4. Present the values to the staff.

It can help to have your CEO kick this off to give it legitimacy. Talk about why culture is important (I cover some of that here). Be sure to emphasize the values came from all of them. Finally, walk through each value. I’m a big fan of a visual treatment, since some folks are visual learners (see our value posters here).

Allow for questions, and be prepared for some skepticism. You don’t need to defend this as if it’s perfect (it’s probably not) and some good-natured joking about the inherent corniness of company values isn’t always bad. As we’ll cover in future posts, the more crucial thing is reinforcing these values and their importance.

Do you have your own company values? Share them in the comments!

A quick note: my process for determining values was heavily inspired by Tony Hsieh. You should absolutely pick up his book.

Zappos photo courtesy of Robert Scoble.

Tags: , , , No Comments »

Avatar of Evan Hamilton

by Evan Hamilton

Why Vimeo’s demented holiday video is a business asset

January 25, 2013 in Company Culture

Vimeo‘s demented happy holidays video shows exactly why they have an amazing connection with their users: they ARE their users.

Vimeo’s team – especially their support team – is full of folks who love making and watching videos. Office films like the one above are the norm, and the staff is even encouraged to watch and comment on user videos during their work day. They don’t just pretend to care about the things their users care about; they actually do care about them. Their users can tell, and that makes all the difference.

Join us at UserConf NYC to hear Vimeo’s Darnell Witt talk about how they’ve built this fantastically user-centric culture and why it’s a huge business advantage for them. Earlybird ticketing ends February 11th, so act now!

Tags: , , , , No Comments »

Avatar of Evan Hamilton

by Evan Hamilton

Introducing new hires to the company culture

January 24, 2013 in Company Culture

This is part of a two-month series on the importance of company culture. Find more posts about culture here.

So you’ve hired someone who is a good cultural fit. That means they’re predisposed to follow your cultural values, but it’s not a guarantee. How do you introduce new hires to your culture and ensure that they’ll dive into it wholeheartedly?

Orient them

UserVoice Value Poster - Build Trust Through Transparency

One of UserVoice’s company values.

Ever shown up for your first day at a job, been given a desk, and then left to your own devices? It feels very lonely. It’s like the first day of school. Do you even want to be here? Maybe this was a mistake.

If you want a new hire to embrace your culture, you need to give them a warm welcome to it. That doesn’t just mean first-day desk decorations (though that doesn’t hurt)…it means spending significant time orienting them. One of the most important things? Sit down every new hire and walk through your company’s cultural values (if there are too many to walk through, then you need to pare them down anyway). Talk about why these values are so important to the company.

Yes, this sounds corny. It is a bit corny. I often break the tension by admitting it, but emphasizing why it’s important. Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappos, describes it in his quintessential culture book, Delivering Happiness:

“A customer e-mailed the other day. He said he loved our customer service…[and] we should one day start a Zappos Airlines.

We realized the biggest vision [for the company] would be to build the Zappos [culture] to be about the very best customer service. Maybe one day there really would be a Zappos Airlines that would just be about the very best customer service and customer experience.” Pgs. 120-121

So tell your new hire: companies with powerful visions and consistent behavior win. We can’t watch every employee all the time. We can’t MAKE people act how we want. So we have to focus on cementing a culture of people all trying to do the same thing, so when a curveball comes – good or bad – we know how to handle it (instead of all running in different directions).

I really like to use real-world examples when going through these values, especially if they involve the company or myself. Showing them the time that I was acting like a jerk brings home the message of empathy much more than just saying it.


(One of my visual aids. Turns out I was logged into the wrong account & freaking out unnecessarily. I’m not normally a jerk, but I seemed like one then. Lesson: have empathy and understand the person’s actual problem. They’re probably a decent person enduring stressful circumstances.)

Give them a real view of the organization

Telling new hires where you come from can not only help them feel more welcome, but help them do their job well. Talk about your history in depth: the good and the bad. Talk about who the founders are and why they’re here. Point them to some of your blog posts that exemplify what your company is about or highlight important parts of your history. Emphasize that they’re helping to write the next chapter.

Timeline of UserVoice's history

More importantly, have them get to know your customers. No matter what department they’re joining, understanding your customers will be useful. When we started having new hires answer support tickets 2.5 years ago, it was fairly rare. Now at least 40% of companies I talk to have this built into their new hire processes.

(Depending on your values, you could easily extend this to other departments as well. Is your company extremely design-focused? Have new hires spend a day or two shadowing your designers and learning about how they think.)

Make sure they (really) get to know the whole team.

The UserVoice team having beersHuman beings focus a lot on immediate connections within our companies: our relationship with our boss, our direct reports, etc. But having weak (or no) relationships with the rest of the staff can breed alienation and cause conflict down the line.

We invite the whole staff to a game night whenever someone joins the company. There’s free beer, a game (Apples to Apples is perfect for this, but darts works in a pinch), and a ridiculous sort of quiz we invented. It gives people who may never be in the same meeting room a chance to connect as human beings.

This includes remote employees. It’s easy to forget them, but they’re just as important as local employees and often feel disconnected (or even disenfranchised). Treat them right and schedule a Skype call for new hires to meet them. It’s not as good as a party, but it helps a lot.

A word of warning: don’t let these events slip. We have in the past. Having the new hire game two weeks after they join is less effective and a little awkward. At that point, people have their initial judgements and the excitement of meeting the new person is gone.

I hope this helps! Feel free to ask any questions you might have about our cultural orientation practices.

Of course, if your company doesn’t live your values then all of this goes to waste. Make sure to keep your eyes out for warning signs and consistently reinforce your values (more on that coming later this month)!

Tags: , , No Comments »

Avatar of Evan Hamilton

by Evan Hamilton

Company culture: warning signs.

January 22, 2013 in Company Culture

This is part of a two-month series on the importance of company culture. Find more posts about culture here.

"Achtung Minen" warning signSo your employees are sending anthrax to customers and putting heads on sticks in front of your office. Maybe something is wrong with your culture?

In all seriousness, the signs of a bad culture are actually quite subtle. And if you’re in a leadership position, they can be even harder to spot. Everyone puts on a good face for the boss; it’s what they do in their daily job that matters.

How can you spot cultural warning signs?

Look through messages sent from employees to customers (tweets, support ticket responses, etc).

This sounds creepy (and maybe it is, a little), but the point is not to find individual infractions and call someone out on it. Instead, you’re looking to see what the general attitude is. Do you see a lot of “sorry man, that’s just the way it is”? Or do you see more “yikes, that really sucks, I’ll see if the dev team can possibly do anything about that”? They both say sorry, but the second response is clearly from someone who cares a lot more.

Ask your team if the company is following its values.

While this is absolutely not the ONLY tactic you should use, it can be illustrative. Survey your staff once or twice a year and ask them to anonymously rate the company on their performance of your company values. See a value that’s hurting? Try to find out why.

Hang out in other rooms.

While you risk the “oh, the boss is here” phenomenon, spending time with different groups of employees can really give you a sense of how they talk and act. Don’t be skeevy about it, though…if someone says something that doesn’t fit the values, discuss it with them. Don’t make them feel like you’re spying on them. Instead, you’re there to help train and guide.

Understand what’s sarcasm and what’s bitterness.

This can be tough, as they look pretty similar. Sarcasm is a necessary part of daily life (and a good way to blow off steam). But if someone continues to make jokes at the expense of your values (“sure, we’ll build that feature…as soon as our frakking customers learn how to use the ones we already have”), it might represent an underlying problem.

Keep an eye out for complacency.

Complacency, silence, and agreement can be great anti-signs. If people don’t argue, it’s probably because they’re trying to slip under the radar. Humans disagree constantly. Your employees agreeing with everything means they don’t care enough to disagree.

The above image is from a great post by Olivier Blanchard. He talks about not just “caring”, but “giving a shit”. The people who just say they “care” are bad news:

“[Complacent] people…are everywhere. It isn’t that they are necessarily lazy. Some are, but some are just apathetic. Doing what they do is a job. A paycheck. Nothing more. They spend their day watching the clock. They are out the door as soon as their work day is over and not a minute more. This is not the kind of employee you want. I don’t care if you are managing a hospital, a restaurant or a global brand, people like this are poison. They are engines of mediocrity, lackluster service, and lousy customer experiences.”

If the guy over in accounts doesn’t care, then soon the person in customer support is going to wonder why they should care about customers with annoying problems. Soon the developers are going to wonder why they should write great code when they can still get paid for lackluster code. Soon you have a sick, dying organization that doesn’t care. This is just as bad as someone being malicious. In fact, it may be worse…because it’s contagious.

The truth about culture is that it’s quite hard to take its pulse. These tips will help, but make sure your first focus is defining values, hiring people who really and truly believe in them, and giving positive reinforcement when staff live by them.

And finally, it’s worth additional emphasis that good culture doesn’t mean everyone is perfect. It’s about general attitudes and biases. It’s the difference between “man, that customer means well but he sure is frustrating” instead of “that guy’s a jerk.” Sounds like a little thing, but it can mean the difference between a Woot and a Bigbuzzy.

Warning photo courtesy of fw190a8.

Tags: , , , No Comments »