Discover your pillars of culture, why they are important and how you can strengthen your company’s culture with them.
Companies Are Driven by Culture
Companies are built on great cultures. In 2021 most people are aware of this. Even if the concept of culture is still not widely understood or well defined, it’s still clear that as a boss you want to have one, and, as an employee, you want to be a part of one. What seems to be missing in this area of business—and possibly this is why culture itself is still not fully understood—is the understanding of where culture comes from.
Most of my CEOs will tell me it comes from them. They will argue that it’s their duty to create it and maintain it. As founders of the company, they arrive at the conclusion that the company that is largely born from them contains a culture that is also largely born from them and thus maintained by them.
Whilst perhaps this is an insightful reflection on how they view their relationship with their company or employees, I find their conclusions to be wrong.
The Seeds of Company Culture
A culture born out of a single person? That just simply isn’t possible. Not without a personality the size of Steve Jobs’ could you realistically hold up a company culture on your own.
Company culture does germinate from the CEO. They usually make the early or key hires (this depends on the size of the company). Those hires are the genuine core of a growing culture. But after germination, the influence of the CEO upon company culture drastically reduces.
Company Culture Pillars Are Key Employees
Once the key people are hired into a company it is they, collectively, who create the tone, style, ethics, attitudes, and beliefs that go into the company culture. Those key people are the pillars of your culture. Like religious leaders, they maintain a constant belief in the big picture. They know the scriptures of your business and preach the policies of the handbook. And when things seem bleak or the future uncertain, they hold the culture together with their “faith” in the company or CEO.
The problem is, hiring for culture is hard, especially if you don’t have a well-defined and supported culture. Often hiring by design—the desire to hire specific people to be those pillars—doesn’t work that well. The pillars of your culture are people that grow into the role, not people whom you hire to be that role. Also, I’ve found its not always a senior leader, sometimes it’s a middle manager or junior person that carries the “religion of the company” with their passion and enthusiasm.
What Is the Takeaway From All This?
- Know where company culture comes from; its a collective manifestation of individuals, not the will of the CEO.
- Avoid trying to artificially construct culture by hiring a proverbial hype man; instead, choose individuals who can grow into their roles.
- Give culture time to develop, and as CEO, be prepared to step back and allow individuals who are ‘culture pillars’ in your team to spear-head company culture and fuel your team with their energy.
Read more of my thoughts on business and gain valuable insights on start-ups and scale-ups by following Bamboo Orchard on LinkedIn.
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