It took us 4 years to define our startup’s culture. Here’s what I learned

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Company culture can be the surfboard of a business, helping it ride the exciting waves of evolving trends. It provides the necessary stability. Just like how The Rolling Stones have been rolling for 50 years and DreamWorks producing  wonderful films year after year, culture is the glue that helps the best teams thrive.

Most companies take too long to define their culture. It took us four years—and an exponential learning curve—to define ours.

What happened to our team

Before I tell you why company culture is important, I’d like to share some instances of how I realized why we needed to shape our culture. I’d be happy if you can learn from this.

There was chaos

When humans come to work together, different aspects of their personalities are bound to collide. There will be chaos. In our case, arguments erupted over varying perspectives, and it was not always calm to begin with.

We slowed each other down

Our employees slowly arranged themselves into small groups and each group formed their own micro-culture. Some groups even imposed their micro-culture on other groups. When distinct groups move in different directions, they are bound to slow each other down.

At one point, the sales team and the creative team formed their own cultures, and their pacing for planning and implementation were different. The sales team wanted to do 10 pitches a day, but the creative team wanted to think their ideas through for each pitch and present tailored pitches. Both teams were right in their own way, but they were not ready to understand each other. The resulting constant back-and-forth slowed things down.

There was attrition

Even though you, as a founder, are rational in solving tension between groups, you will often leave at least one group unhappy, unheard, and disappointed. And most of the time, employees tend to rationalize their job dissatisfaction rather than consider that they may be part of the problem. The unhappiness will sink in faster than you can imagine and they will quit—sometimes even in groups.

While I understand that attrition is a reality, it feels a tad more personal in a startup. One time, I realized that complacency and stagnancy had crept into the team. There were two-hour tea breaks happening twice or thrice a week and unplanned leaves. These would be OK if there were progress in the assignments. But in a startup, stagnancy is a disaster, especially when a new product is about to launch.

Despite giving the employees polite reminders for months, there seemed to be inaction and I received replies like, “Don’t worry—all on track.”  When words were not cutting the deal and enough was enough for me, I sent one warning email. But within a week, I found myself handling a group exit. The employees chose to leave the boat in choppy waters rather than paddle faster.

Guiding lights to the right culture

With all of this happening, I found it imperative to define our company culture and shape it right. So, here are some thoughts on what helped us in the process.

Final thoughts