Intentional Culture Creation Advice from Google: Define your culture at the outset of your company's life

This is part of a series of post looking at tools that companies have used to intentionally create culture.

Google in 1999 (Photo Credit: BusinessWeek)

In their book How Google Works, Eric Schmidt & Jonathan Rosenberg, advocate for thinking about culture at the beginning of creating a company. They write, “Many people, when considering a job, are primarily concerned with their role and responsibilities, the company's track record, the industry, and compensation. Further down on that list, probably somewhere between "length of commute" and "quality of coffee in the kitchen," comes culture. Smart creatives, though, place culture at the top of the list. To be effective, they need to care about the place they work. This is why, when starting a new company or initiative, culture is the most important thing to consider.”

“Most companies' culture just happens; no one plans it. That can work, but it means leaving a critical component of your success to chance...We preach the value of experimentation and the virtues of failure, but culture is perhaps the one important aspect of a company where failed experiments hurt. Once established, company culture is very difficult to change, because early on in a company's life a self-selection tendency sets in. People who believe in the same things the company does will be drawn to work there, while people who don’t won't. If a company believes in a culture where everyone gets a say and decisions are made by committee, it will attract like-minded employees. But if that company tries to adopt a more autocratic or combative approach, it will have a very hard time getting employees to go along with it.”

“The smart approach is to ponder and define what sort of culture you want at the outset of your company's life. And the best way to do is to ask the smart creatives who form your core team, the ones who know the gospel and believe in it as much as you do. Culture stems from founders, but it is best reflected in the trusted team the founders form to launch their venture. So ask that team: What do we care about? What do we believe? Who do we want to be? How do we want our company to act and make decisions? Then write down their responses. They will, in all likelihood, encompass the founders' values, but embellish them with insights from the team's different perspectives and experiences.”  

Schmidt & Jonathan Rosenberg write that, “Most companies neglect this. They become successful, and then decide they need to document their culture. The job falls to someone in the human resources or PR department who probably wasn't a member of the founding team but who is expected to draft a mission statement that captures the essence of the place. The result is usually a set of corporate sayings that are full of "delighted" customers, "maximized" shareholder value, and "innovative" employees. The difference, though, between successful companies and unsuccessful ones is whether employees believe the words.” (How Google Works, Eric Schmidt & Jonathan Rosenberg, page 29-30)

Making Culture Tangible: Using Language to Shape Your Culture

This is the first in a series of posts about methods for making culture, which is inherently intangible, more tangible.

In their lively book Creative Confidence, Tom Kelley and David Kelley write about how organizations can use language to verbalize cultural goals and norms. 

"What we say-- and how we say it--can deeply affect a company's culture. Anyone who has battled racism or sexism knows words matter. To change attitudes and behaviors, it helps to first change the vernacular."

The Kelleys give several examples of people and organizations who change culture through language. "Jim Wiltens, an outdoorsman, author, adventure traveler, and speaker who also teaches a program of his own design for gifted and talented children in Northern California schools. In his programs, Jim emphasizes the power of positive vocabulary. And Jim leads by example. You will be literally never hear Jim say, "I can't." He avoids saying those dreaded words by using more constructive versions that emphasize the possible, such as "I could if I..." He actually promises to pay his young students hundred dollars if they ever catch him saying, "I can't."

In a very different field, they write about "When Cathie Black took over as president of Hearst Magazines, she noticed that negative speech patterns had created an environment hostile to new ideas... So Black told her senior team that every time they said, "we've tried that already" or "that will never work," she would fine them ten dollars."

"How Might We" Questions

Many people in the design field have heard of the phrase "How Might We...," since IDEO uses the phrase to start their brainstorming sessions. However, it was actually Salesforce that coined the term. The Kelleys write, "One version of the alternative to the negative speech patterns is the phrase, "How Might We...," introduced to us several years ago by Charles Warren, now salesforce.com's senior vice president of product design. "How Might We..." is an optimistic way of seeking out new possibilities in the world. In a matter of weeks, the phrase went viral at IDEO and has stuck ever since."