3 keys to a killer company culture

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People who love their work aren’t lucky — they’ve made good choices. Whether you need to change your mindset, your actions, or your employer, one thing’s for sure: there are steps you can take immediately to improve your daily experience or long-term career prospects.

Creating the right company culture is one important step. Here are three things I noticed about my company’s culture that I can’t live without.

1. Leadership that structurally values and challenges your input.

It’s no fun to work where you can’t grow or effect change. If your manager tells you to “do this, do that, and don’t bother telling me what you think about it,” absolutely run the other way. At the same time, be wary of organizations that talk all rainbows and butterflies. Teammates who listen to you without challenging your ideas, deepening them, or adding new perspectives will encourage you but not help your personal development.

Find the in-between where your suggestions are welcomed, but sprinkled with deliberation. Many of Cialfo’s product and strategic decisions came from the ground up. Our department heads listened while challenging us to back up our sentiments with data. They helped us ask the right questions to build stronger business sense around raw ideas. Behavior like this is a good sign—and the more often you see it, the more likely your company will be able to groom new leaders across the ranks.

Tip: At a job interview, don’t ask point blank if the company “values employee input.” Instead, ask how decisions are made and ask about the last time a new project or company-wide change came about from the suggestions of low to mid-level employees. The flatter the hierarchy, the higher your chances of learning and making meaningful contributions to the business.

2. Colleagues who make you think, laugh, and see the world through different lenses.

Historical fiction, AI, Japanese words for feelings inexpressible in other languages — these are just some of the topics that fill the halls at my company. Having nine nationalities in a 15-person team explains part of its dynamism; the fact that we have collectively seen so many parts of the world makes our office an encyclopedia of cultures and specializations.

But I’d like to think there’s a deeper reason we are this diverse. We are genuinely interested in so many things, and we share these interests with one another. Just like we want our students to be hyper-engaged change agents lighting up the world, each of us is on our own journey of discovery and self-improvement that benefits not just us but also the rest of the group.

We bring our true and whole selves to work, and I suspect that’s why we like each other. From team lunches to games of Whose Favorite Song Is That, someone is always singing, giggling, or sharing funny articles online. We are just as likely to debate educational philosophies as we are to attend music gigs together outside work.

We care enough to create pregnancy protocols for mums-to-be and bake super-vegan cookies for our dairy-avoiding and vegetarian comrades. This friendliness is probably natural (we’re human after all!), but it’s also the product of careful hiring. The culture is at once organic and reinforced, and the resulting everyday experience can be magical.

Tip: Before you join a company, meet the team. Aside from gauging their warmth and openness, ask people directly who they’re closest to and learn the most from. If they respect their leaders but think little of their peers, that’s a major red flag.

3. Bridges instead of walls.

How does your company handle conflict, confusion, and culpability? These difficult, awkward moments – when clients complain, colleagues fight, investors are angry, or hiring goes awry – are when companies can flop or shine. There are certain mentalities that determine which fate yours will face.

If I had to choose the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse for a company’s culture, they’d probably be:

• Us versus them – factions, labels, competing subgroups, people treating one another like they’re on opposite sides of a negotiating table instead of on one team.
• Under the rug – secrecy about screw-ups, ignoring signs of trouble, leaving problems or tensions unresolved until much too late.
• Report over rapport – taking problems straight to HR or the bosses instead of talking to the relevant colleagues first, no empathy, cold and transactional interaction.
• No title, no leading – staff not trusted to solve problems or take risks, clear division between what leaders and regular employees are trusted to do.