Your Culture Is by Design, Or By Default
“Move fast and break things.”
That’s the motto that Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg had (now infamously) communicated internally and externally, intended to articulate both the pace and pulse of the company.
Now the company has graduated to a different mantra for its developers: “move fast with stable infra.”
It begs the question: is this seemingly more mature mantra a believable message about the company’s culture?
I won’t attempt to answer that question, but it reminded me of a major message around culture from our recent executive leadership training at Aileron in Tipp City, Ohio.
A company’s culture is by design, or by default.
A company’s culture is no accident (even if we haven’t seen it in a strategic capacity up until now). It’s not only a reflection of a leader’s values, but it’s a reflection of hundreds of decisions and reinforced behaviors over time.
Despite this, it’s never too soon to change or build your culture with intention.
As leaders, here are starter questions we should ask ourselves:
What are management’s values and how are they put into practice?
What does it take to get promoted?
How do employees get rewarded?
How do employees get punished?
How do you learn what is happening at the company?
Who do you value most, and why?
What behavior is allowed here? (After all—that means it is encouraged.)
Culture change may take as much as one year for every year of significant level or layer that exists within an organization.
So how can we start the process?
Three examples of how we can begin to shape culture in a remote environment include:
Publishing values and your purpose statement—one that employees helped craft;
Share realities of company—the good and the ugly, as well as where you want to be in the future (the vision);
Create new stories and celebrate wins (employees to clients) outwardly.
These are just a few ways to start shifting your culture, helping you to make your company be a place that’s attractive to the kind of workers you will want to bring in months—or even years—into the future.
While I do not know if Facebook’s new motto is on-strategy or if it is helping to promote a healthy culture, it provides an example of how we can evolve as a company over time. It shows how communication (internally and externally), is certainly a part of that process.
