Friends of Dave #135: Culture Club
Show me a successful company and I will show you a great culture behind it.
Those long time Friends of Dave know that I have such a love/hate relationship with social media, particularly Facebook. While I love the concept of having the ability to easily stay connected and engaged with large networks of people from various stages in our lives, I hate how these platforms have evolved and are put into actual practice. It's like we all have an open mic in front of us and many people feel compelled to use it to broadcast whenever and for whatever purpose strikes their fancy.....
That said, I recently had one of those rare social media experiences that genuinely made me smile. As I was flipping through one of my feeds, up pops a picture of 6 former work colleagues (4 of whom happen to be Friends of Dave!) out together in NYC. None of them currently work together but they all decided to make time to meet up because one was visiting from the West Coast. I was bummed I was not there (and I know I was not the only one).
I've written before about how much I enjoy working with great teams, but seeing this picture reminded me that an even more important indicator that an organization will be successful can also be found in the emphasis they have on building and maintaining a strong sense of purpose and culture. I was extremely fortunate to have spent the first half of my career at a company fostered that.
If you have ever worked in an organization that is truly thoughtful about culture and values it as much as work output, you know that lots of great things happen as a result. First, bonded by a shared purpose, people at these firms genuinely like each other. They are more collaborative, empathetic towards one another, and will, more often than not, put the good of the team ahead of their own self interests. Strong work cultures bring people together.
What this also does, especially in fast growing organizations like the one I was with, is it becomes an organic, driving force in attracting like minded talent across the organization. It doesn't matter if someone is in finance, sales, IT, marketing, customer service or HR -- an authentically cohesive culture will effortlessly select the right people to join the team. For growing companies, this can provide almost exponential boosts to productivity and achievement. Strong work cultures become a competitive advantage.
Finally, I have see this first hand: companies that continually invest in developing their cultures see higher rates of employee satisfaction and, in turn, higher customer retention rates and referrals. It's pretty simple: when people like going to work and feel valued by their co-workers and management, they inevitably go the extra mile for customers. That leads to better problem solving, more innovation and a stellar customer experience. Strong work cultures lead to satisfied stakeholders.
Ultimately the commitment to building and maintaining a winning culture (which is hard as a company becomes successful and grows) must be authentic. It's easy to plaster company mission statements and corporate values on walls and employee handbooks -- it is much harder to actually to commit to live by those ideals every day from the top of the organization down. You can't fake company culture, particularly now as the workforce is increasingly becoming distributed and remote. And your culture is like any asset: if you leave it unattended or take it for granted (no matter how strong it once was), it will quickly diminish in value.
Think about it -- who doesn't want to be a part of an organization where you like and respect co-workers, you can easily attract talented people to join you and make things better, and your customers love what you do and how you improve their daily lives? If your company isn't doing all three, it's either time to affect some change Friends, or time to look elsewhere. Life is just too short.
Now that I am older, seeing that photo in my timeline gave a much bigger appreciation for what my colleagues and I helped build years ago. Some of the closest people to me today (which includes some of you getting this) came into my life simply because we all happened to get hired to work for the same company around the same time years ago. In addition to the many successes and failures that we shared in the office, along the way we have also shared dance parties, holiday parties, Super Bowl parties, birthday parties, going away parties, bachelor parties, weddings, funerals, BBQs, vacations, the births of children and all of the crazy twists and turns that occur outside of the office in our real lives.
The best work cultures can create a sense of belonging that enrich people's lives and make them happier, more productive and successful -- even after they leave the company.
I'll leave you with that my Friends. Enjoy this last weekend in July and the links below. Going to try to ease up on the preambles in August.
XOXO
Dave
Think on This...
On Mindfulness: A Counter Point To Its Usefulness
After a certain point, mindfulness doesn’t allow you to take responsibility for and analyze your feelings.
Last week I spent some time talking about practicing being mindful. In a weird twist, this provocative counter argument to its usefulness showed up in my inbox this week. While mindfulness promotes itself as value-neutral, some feel it is loaded with (troubling) assumptions about the self and the world.
A Few For Your Day Job...
Why Are Stock Buybacks So Popular? American corporations are spending trillions of dollars to repurchase their own stock. The practice is enriching CEOs—at the expense of everyone else.
Most people you’re selling to are not experiencing much pain.
Great post by Andy Raskin that highlights the importance of developing pitches and selling narratives that stay away from pain and relief and focus more on motivating prospects to buy to alleviate fear and satisfy desire.
How Community Content Is Driving Customer Experience in the SaaS Ecosystem
Community content isn't just the content that your community contributes - it's content produced by people who actually use your service. If you are thinking about customer experience and retention, you should definitely check this one out.
Your Weekly Dose of Randomness...
Almost Every Bob Ross Painting in Existence Lives in a Virginia Office Park
As an odd follow up to my mention of the Bob Ross documentary on Prime last week, here is the answer to a question I know many of you have been pondering....
Hipster Bibles are now a thing
I hear that the manger in Bethlehem has been replaced with a kombucha bar in Brooklyn....
Man walks 800km in reverse to save Indonesia’s forests
Would have been even more interesting if the headline read "Florida Man Walks 800 Yards in Reverse to Save The Dying Art of the Moonwalk"......
There's a Massive Conch-Shell Graveyard in the Caribbean
In related news, Caribbean nations experiencing a massive epidemic of people feeling that they are unable to make their points known and heard....if you don't get this reference, all I can say is "Sucks to your assmar!"
And The Last Word....
My Frantic Life as a Cab-Dodging, Tip-Chasing Food App Delivery Person — www.nytimes.com
I had stumbled through a dystopian portal. I thought of what a colleague had said the day before: “You’re one step above an Amazon drone.”
Slightly long (but compelling) inside look at a reporter's 27 hour stint as a rider for food-delivery apps. I know a lot of you liked the insider account of a writer-turned-Amazon delivery person article I shared a few months back, so you will likely enjoy this one as well.
And here is a surprising tidbit: two-thirds of his customers did not tip.