Getting Your Company Culture Right From the Start(up)
One important component of building a solid business is crafting a cohesive and strong company culture. Culture is the DNA of an organization, and it defines the lived experience of working at a particular company, whether it’s a small startup or large corporation. Company culture is not something that employees necessarily create themselves. Ideally, it’s the experience crafted for them -- explicitly and implicitly. Knowing your values and purpose from the beginning will help you vet potential talent so you can bring in the right people who can thrive in the culture you’ve built. Company culture should not be left to chance, as it is a lot harder to change once it’s been established. But if you’re just getting started, then you have the opportunity to forge a strong company culture from the outset. It will ensure you maintain the vision of your company and the overall success of that vision. Here are some strategies to consider when developing your company’s culture. Getting Your Company Culture Right From the Start(up) Culture is simply a shared way of doing something with a passion. - Brian Chesky, Co-Founder & CEO of Airbnb Determine what your story is The first step to establishing your company culture is understanding your purpose. This is the “story” of your company that helps map out how to get where you want to go. It’s important to keep it simple -- if you can’t describe what your company’s purpose is in a 30-second pitch, then you might be doing it wrong. Choose two primary goals and two secondary goals in order to have something to rally around. How will you sell yourself not only to your ideal customers but also to potential employees? What will you do to get that solid 5-star review on Glassdoor? Articulate your vision, mission and values The next step is to take your purpose, your goals, and the long-term narrative of your company, and to write them out in solid mission and vision statements. Your mission is essentially what you’re doing, what you’re providing, and what you want people to get from the moment they discover your company. Your vision is where you want the company to go, what you hope it will eventually provide, and the change you want your startup to make. You wouldn’t have started it if you didn’t think it would make a change, right? Then, you need your values. Usually, it’s a good idea to have three to five. This will be important in selecting people who share those values. Is it trust? Is it transparency? Teamwork? Plan the environment and working experience The third step, now that you have your story and your articulated mission, vision, and value statements, is to determine how you’re going to embed those into the lived experience of your company. The spaces that your employees inhabit will have a profound effect on their experience and on your culture. How something is constructed says a lot about that company itself. If your values include teamwork, then determine if an open office environment is the most important for you. If your values include individuality, then perhaps consider creating incentives for over-performing, means of special recognition, and more closed off spaces. If you want your company to feel like it’s a small business with a homey environment no matter the size, then consider having lounge spaces and promoting worker breaks. Consider the strong company cultures of companies like Google or Etsy, that supply a “small office” culture to a large corporation to make their employees feel more at home and feel more like they’re a part of a small family. Etsy, for instance, builds sustainable work environments to promote some of their company values. Everything from the materials they used to the level of detail in selecting and arranging furniture furthers their goals of creating a sustainable business model. Vet talent from the beginning Now that you’ve figured out your values, it’s important to make sure you pick the right people from the very beginning. People who share your values will be happier, more productive, and more loyal to your company. There are several strategies for vetting potential employees and learning about their values. You don’t have to take the traditional route to finding people to work with you. Use creativity to figure out new and innovative ways to have people apply. Vet them with questions about their values. Maybe even change the application process to include something creative or fun! Perhaps most importantly, don’t be afraid to be original in the structure of your interviews. You aren’t beholden to asking the same old questions, like what their biggest weakness is or how they handle stress (though you can obviously still ask these). Instead, focus on questions that will reveal who they are, what their values are, how they will fit in, and how they will contribute to your story. Get to the core of the person, and figure out how they’ll work with your team. You don’t need a particular personality type or specific kind of person; you need somebody who will contribute new perspectives, challenges, and a strong work ethic -- while sharing your values. Encourage your employees' growth and engagement You don’t want to stop at simply recruiting the right kinds of people. Instead, you need a long-term plan for how you’ll retain them. How will you measure your employee's happiness in your workplace? What are your metrics for gauging positivity and for assessing if the work environment you're providing is hostile, boring, or enjoyable? Also, you need to provide employees with an opportunity to grow both as people and as workers. If they’re contributing to the growth and sustainability of your company, then you absolutely owe it to them to provide them that same growth and sustainability. Give them challenging projects. Recognize their special skills and the work they’ve done. Train them on skills they don’t have and let them grow and develop as people. If there’s no room for growth for your workers, then what reason is there for them to stay? And, most importantly: care about them. Care about if they’re happy, and if they’re satisfied with the work they’re doing. Care about whether the work is boring, and how you can improve the fun factor. Recognize that company culture can make or break you If you want to be successful, then you need to remember that starting strong ensures you stay strong. Starting with a poor company culture is not going to help keep employees around, nor will it make you an attractive choice to customers who are asked to choose between your brand or your competitors. The workplace should not be a place where people feel the compulsion to share banal information over the proverbial water cooler simply because they’re going through the motions. You don’t want your employees to dread coming into work every day. You want enthusiastic, hardworking, and productive people who can grow alongside your company. Company culture matters. What story will you create?
Give Your Brand a Soul: Why Vision, Mission and Values Matter
So you've decided to take the plunge and start your own business. Congratulations! You've joined a unique club of taste-makers, industry disruptors, and risk-takers.But before you get hung up on brand colors or your social media strategy, you need to take a step back and make sure you have a solid brand strategy in place. Most notably, your company will need vision, mission and value statements that will form the why, what, and how of your organization, and drive decisions -- big and small -- going forward.Give Your Brand a Soul: Why Vision, Mission and Values MatterVision, mission and value (VMV) statements help brands build meaningful connections with their public. It creates an exceptional customer and employee experience that gives your business the stepping stones to increase its profitability while building a strong base of brand promoters.If you nail these three things down early on, your company stands a greater chance of success. You'll be able to make and execute strategic decisions without having to think twice if they are aligned with your future goals.A strong vision will guide your decisionsWhen starting a business, there seems to be a never-ending list of things you need to do and consider. If not managed correctly, you might quickly find yourself overwhelmed and unfocused. A vision statement is one of the best ways to keep you inspired and your business right on track.Think of your company's vision statement as its compass, which points the way towards what it wants to become. Having one ensures you’re always going in the right direction, and that you never lose sight of your end goal. It is also the outcome that you test any incoming opportunity against.For instance, you may ask yourself:How big do you want the company to get?How many employees, if any, do you want to have?What kind of legacy do you want the business to have?With a clear vision statement in place, you can avoid getting lost, and instead make strategic business decisions that will point you in the right direction for the long-term.A strong mission will inspire communityAt the heart of your newly minted business should lie your mission. Your company's purpose, its reason for existence, and the difference it strives to make in the world should all be defined in its mission statement.Not only does it create strong brand differentiation and inspire both consumer passion and brand engagement, but a strong mission statement also helps your employees figure out if they fit in. This strategic direction aligns your focus, and tells your employees what they need to deliver and why. It is also a key driver of organizational performance and a strong predictor of business success.At some point in your journey, you might be approached by other brands to form strategic partnerships, or you might want to select key influencers to try your product. How do you choose?By making sure the partnership or the influencer aligns with your mission. If your business is committed to promoting responsible tourism in developing countries, for example, it won't make sense to team up with a travel blogger who doesn't promote traveling with a greener footprint.A strong mission statement helps make sure that anything your brand is investing time and energy into will bring you one step closer to achieving your purpose. When formulating yours, ask yourself: What do you want to achieve, for whom, and by what means?Strong values will define your company cultureYour values drive how your organization will operate. As an intricate part of your business, it will form your company culture, help attract like-minded employees, and drive the choices you make.Just as importantly, company culture is now among the top five factors people consider when weighing a job offer, with a positive company culture linked to higher employee retention and increased engagement. So having a core set of values is no longer a "nice to have" option for businesses that want to succeed!But values must also drive business decisions, which in turn affects how your customers see you. For example, if one of your values is fighting against animal exploitation, and you decide to use an animal-based product because it's the cheaper option, you aren't living up to your brand values.For your brand's values to be effective, they need to more than just a pretty bulleted list on your company's About page. They need to be genuine. Everything you do needs to relate back to them, and you have to be faithful to them every single day. Your statements, like the business world, are not stagnantThe decisions you make turn your brand's vision, mission and values into something tangible for your audience. It humanizes your brand and shows your customers what you care about, what your purpose is, and where you are going.But it's also important to keep in mind that the business world is anything but stagnant. As your new company grows and evolves, so will your objectives and goals. Therefore, don't create your statements and forget about them. Review them as needed to make sure they are honest reflections of what, why and how your business operates.
Why 90-Day Goals Are Key to Your Business's Success
How are your business goals looking right now? Are you drowning in an endless sea of tasks and can’t find a coast to save your life? You’re not alone. It is not uncommon for business owners to set out with a lofty vision for what they want to achieve in the next year (or three), only to start sinking -- not because their goals were unrealistic, but because they lacked a strategy and smart plan to get them there. We all know that without a step-by-step plan, your ambitious long-term goals will remain just a dream. And a dream that’s not grounded in the here and now can be fleeting. Yet year-long business goals can easily make you and your employees feel both confused and overwhelmed at the same time. The solution? Three-month goals. Why 90-Day Goals Are Key to Your Business's Success By narrowing your vision to 90 days, you can break down goals and turn them into doable plans of action. Here's why the most successful entrepreneurs plan their businesses 90-days at a time, and how you can turn your company around by following the same formula. Your business becomes more adaptable to change The biggest problem with one-year goals is the time-frame. A lot can happen in twelve months; goals can become irrelevant, or procrastination sets in because there's always tomorrow. By planning your business in 90-day chunks, you create an environment of accountability while still leaving room to adapt to market trends and change course as needed. Also, if a goal does not work out, it is easier to go back to the drawing board and realign for the next 90 days, rather than waiting a whole year before hitting the reset button. You learn to say no and prioritize what matters When trying to achieve a goal, there will always be a list of things to accomplish. However, not all of them need to be done today, this week, or even in the next 90 days. By learning to identify which tasks will directly help you achieve your three-month goals, you will be able to say no to time-wasters and clear up your task list for the items that truly matter. Not only will you become less "busy," but your employees and business will become more focused and productive. You improve communication and teamwork Do your employees understand the company's goals? Are they on-board with where your business is going? Creating a team that is aligned to your goals is fundamental to great strategy execution. One of the biggest benefits of three-month goals is that they are small enough for everyone in the company to understand and collectively work towards achieving. When your team knows what it is they are working towards, they can easily prioritize their tasks. This will allow your business to break the cycle of broken resolutions and start achieving its goals. How to set three-month business goals Step 1: Choose three core goals For your first 90-day roadmap, choose three goals that you want your business to focus on for the next quarter. Make sure these goals are SMART: Specific Measurable Attainable Realistic Time-based It is also a good idea to write them down. According to a study by Gail Matthews at Dominican University, people who write down their goals accomplish significantly more than those who do not. Don’t be afraid to be ambitious; just remember you only have three months to turn your goals into reality. Step 2: Involve your team Once you have your three goals, involve your team. Ask them how they feel about focusing on these for the next 90 days, whether they think 90 days is a doable time-frame, and how it would feel to achieve these goals. This simple exercise is a fantastic way to get feedback, create accountability, and ensure you are focusing on great goals that your team is just as committed to achieving. Step 3: Break each goal down into actionable items The final step is to unpack your goals and turn them into actionable snippets. Each team should take a look at the three goals and identify the actions that would need to be completed each day, week and month. Once team goals are set, each team member should do the same with their own task list. When the goal is broken down into specific tasks, it becomes obvious what to do, and it creates small measurable steps that are easily tracked and adjusted accordingly. Are you ready to commit to the next three months? A 90-day goal demands action right away. They are not too long or too short. In fact, they are the perfect length to combat procrastination and see measurable results in a short amount of time. Successful business owners know that setting one, two or three-year goals is pointless without a plan on how to get there. By turning your biggest ambitions into relatively bite-sized chunks, you can crack down on procrastination and long to-do lists, and focus instead on how to get from A to B one three-month-step at a time.
6 Ways to Make Better Business Decisions, Faster
As an entrepreneur your biggest responsibility is to make important decisions every single day. As the leader of your organization, the decisions you make, day after day, directly impact the future of your company. But it’s not just the quality of the decisions that matter. It’s the speed too. Entrepreneurs who can make good business decisions quickly are at a significant advantage over those that take their time. In order to be a leader, especially in a new or volatile market, you must make the hard decisions, fast. Here are five ways you can make better business decisions, faster. 6 Ways to Make Better Business Decisions, Faster “When you’re not spending any time worrying, you’re spending time executing.” - Gary Vaynerchuk Know your mission and prioritize accordingly What is the one thing your company is really trying to do? Keep that squarely in mind, and commit to it. Every decision you make should be directed towards your company’s mission and goals. Every time a tough choice comes up, ask yourself, “Does this decision support the mission of the company?” Focus on the facts, not on your opinions. When you truly understand the mission of the organization, it’s easier to be objective and to check your ego and emotions at the door. As Gary Vaynerchuk says, “Speed is the only thing that matters, and opinions predicated on people’s insecurities and ego slow shit down.” Don’t delay on making important decisions — if you delay, those decisions will still be waiting for you down the road. If you need to, devote a block of time to focus on big-picture decision-making. But it’s important to set deadlines for yourself too, or you could find yourself stuck all day without a decision. Make fewer decisions about non-essential stuff Mark Zuckerburg always wears the same thing every day. Why? So he has one less decision to make that day. This relates to the concept of decision fatigue –- a psychological term describing the deterioration of the quality of decision-making that comes with a long series of making decisions. So by eliminating some of the non-essential decisions in your life, you save your time and mental energies for the decisions that really do matter. Elle Kaplan says to try to find areas where you can streamline. You may not wear the same thing everyday like Zuckerberg, but you may lay out your clothes for the next day, thus eliminating one decision for tomorrow. She says, “If something doesn’t fit your mission in life, why waste time thinking about it?" Anything can be turned into a binary decision: yes or no It’s easy to overcomplicate your life (and quickly)! But if you reduce decisions into black or white, good or bad, yes or no, you can avoid the analysis paralysis that can often cripple the decision-making process. It can actually be fun to make fast decisions, as you get to quickly knock things off your to-do list. And honestly, most of your everyday decisions aren’t worth more than 10 minutes. Delegate Delegating empowers your staff to make decisions on their own without waiting for you to say “go”. This in turn is a crucial part of motivating your employees. Try and let your team come to the decision on their own, but be ready to step in and take the reins when necessary. If you do need to step in to make a quick decision, explain your choice to the team, and stick with it. For complex decisions: set a time limit, follow up, adjust If an analytical approach to complex decisions is appropriate, it’s crucial to implement a time limit. It’s easy to go into business meetings, discuss the problem, come up with solutions, and then just let them marinade. Commit to something and follow up to see if that was the right choice. Kaplan recommends conducting decision debriefs on major decisions 30-60 days after implementation -- then ask yourself: was a longer analysis ultimately more valuable than a quick assessment of your best options? If you do need that extra time to make an important decision, don’t delay too long. Fast Company published a great article on decision-making that follows the experience of a startup founder and former Google employee. The co-founder recommends making most major decisions quickly, but then waiting 24 hours before implementing to make sure that decision was the right one. This is a nice middle-path -- you’ve sped up your decision-making process but are allowing yourself the patience and perspective that a big decision often requires. Practice, practice, practice Consider how much time and effort a decision is worth, and then turn that thought process into a habit. Here are two quick exercises you can practice daily to help you speed up your decision-making process. The 2 minute rule: Make a short deadline for simple decisions, anywhere from 1-5 minutes. This will force you into a rapid pros and cons mentality. Put it in a hat: If you have a situation where all options are equal, write them down and put them in a hat, take one, and follow through. Final thoughts While speed in your decision-making is a critical factor in your business's success, it’s the quality of the decision that ultimately matters. Yet a slow, methodical analytic approach is not always the best path to that decision. You have to balance patience with decision-making. Speed up the process for the micro decisions to free up time and mental space for the big-picture decisions that really matter, and then execute on them for the win!
