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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.

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by Carter Gibson

Not being a dick is key to being empathetic

January 28, 2013 in Company Culture

As part of our series on the importance of company culture, we’re highlighting our company values here at UserVoice. Find more posts about culture here.

To start off our series of blog posts about our values, I’m going to begin with the one that assured me that UserVoice was the right place for me to work. It’s also the one people seem to have the most questions about. “I get the first part, but why do you need the second part!?” Trust me. My parents almost spat out their coffee when I told them about our “Have empathy and don’t be a dick” value. While some people don’t immediately get it, I did and here’s why:

Sometimes the best way to say something is the best way to say something. In an industry saturated with “We care” promises (that aren’t always kept), we needed language to represent our genuine commitment to understanding our customers. When a customer has a frustration, you can’t understand their pain unless you respect them first. You can’t solve their problem if you’re not dedicated to working with them. It wasn’t enough to just have empathy – we believed you couldn’t be a dick either.

So that’s what we say. “Have empathy and don’t be a dick.”

UserVoice cultural value

We commit to people that no matter their complaint or type of help they need. We want people to be comfortable contacting us and trust that we’re here to assist, not chastise. But it’s about more than just our customers. We’re not going to be a dick to our competitors or team members either. Suddenly, by adding that second part to our value, we not only reassured people we could be trusted to empathize with them, but also made a statement about our culture and became a more attractive place to work. Our copywriter Andy agrees:

Maybe “have empathy and don’t be a dick” is a little cheeky, but it’s also unflinching about the kind of behavior we expect from each other. And working with people who are compassionate is its own sweet reward.

It’s not an empty promise. We wanted to make that as clear as possible. Empathizing is what we do. We’re not the company that’s going to say “We care about your issues but can’t help.” If you ask me, that’s a pretty dick move – and we’re not dicks at UserVoice.

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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.

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Avatar of Evan Hamilton

by Evan Hamilton

Good culture (and a successful company) starts with hires. Period.

January 16, 2013 in Company Culture

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

I’m sorry, but it’s as simple as this: hire for culture, or fail.

You can do whatever you want to build a good culture or make a profitable company, but if you have a team that isn’t aligned with your cultural values then it’s just not going to be sustainable.

It’s not about untalented people or slackers who download cat videos while outsourcing their work. These folks are relatively easy to weed out. No company wants them. It’s the people who don’t believe the same fundamental things as you that are dangerous. Especially if you’re trying to build a user-centric organization.

Just you don’t want to hire someone who talks shit about the CEO in the break room, you don’t want to hire people who are going to complain about “idiot customers”. These may seem like minor infractions (everyone gets irritated at some point, right?) but they quickly contaminate other workers and create a toxic environment for customer care.

Toy Story characters saying: "What are they saying?" "Well...apparently we suck."

Did you know that Toy Story 2 almost sucked? Yep. After 3 years of work, the movie was starting to come together…but it wasn’t good. But because Pixar had built a culture where dissenting opinions were welcomed, Oren Jacob – who at the time wasn’t a screenwriter or creative director, but actually just Associate Technical Director – told Steve Jobs & John Lasseter that the movie stunk. They reviewed it, agreed, and totally revamped it. Toy Story 2 went on to be critically acclaimed and loved by kids and parents alike.

For this reason, “Don’t Be a Yes-Man” is one of our cultural values. Take a second to think: would every one of your staff be willing to tell the CEO if something sucked?

You can’t force someone to fit.

You can’t train someone to actually care. You can’t pay them to care. Could I pay you to care about my niece’s school play? No. I can pay you to fake it but you won’t really care (and when you think I’m not looking, you’ll behave how you really feel.)

The thing is, your users can tell. Even if you pay someone a hundred bucks for every smile and “thank you so much” they give, people can tell when it’s fake. It’s not about pretending to care; it’s about actually caring. Saying “we’re so sorry” is not nearly as effective as trying to actually solve the person’s problem. Saying “I profusely apologize, but we don’t have that feature” doesn’t help your company as much as elevating that feature request to your product team.

So, how do you hire for culture?

UserVoice value poster: have empathy and don't be a dick1) Figure out what your company values are. If you’re two guys in a garage, that’ll be an easy conversation. If you’re at a bigger company, it can be harder (Jason Cohen suggests it’s nearly impossible after 12 employees, though I’m not sure I agree.) Survey your staff and ask them what words, phrases, and attitudes come to mind when they think of your company. Do the same for your customers. Ask your CEO what he thinks your mission is. The most common themes become your values. (Hint: if the CEO’s answers differ wildly from everyone else’s, something is wrong.) You can find my full process for determining values here.

2) Develop interview questions that expose interviewees’ thoughts on those values. If one value is having empathy, then ask them if they ever worked at a place where people asked stupid questions. If they say yes and complain about it, that’s not a good sign. Let me be clear: you’re not necessarily looking for a “no”, just for a level of empathy. An acceptable answer would be “yes, the customers at my last company did ask dumb questions but it was just because they had less experience with computer software”. You’re trying to understand their biases, not their yes/no opinions. Failing any of these questions doesn’t rule them out, but should be warning signs.

3) Find opportunities to see what interviewees are like outside of the interview. I am absolutely against not hiring or firing someone because of their personal life, but if you see that they scream at reasonable people left and right on Twitter, that’s not a great sign. Zappos’s big trick is to see how interviewees treat the Zappos bus driver who takes them to the HQ.

4) Go with your gut. It’s a little scary, I know. But if someone feels like they’re not going to fit your culture on multiple fronts, then that feeling is probably right. Just make sure you don’t let a single odd response eliminate someone (one person we interviewed did poorly on our fun value…then ended up being one of the most fun employees we had).

Commenter on Lifehacker.com complaining about cultural interview questions

Some folks won’t like this. That’s totally fine…in fact, it’s helpful. The screenshot above is from a great comment thread on Lifehacker about cultural questions in interviews.  The guy bitching about how cultural questions are unfair comes across as an unpleasant person. Do you want him on your team? Probably not. Again, it’s not about the actual answers to the questions, it’s about the attitudes and values the interviewee reveals.

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