The Importance of Culture
Photo of Adam Parker Goldberg.
Editorial note: This article is part of an ongoing series of essays on my experience building products. It contains thoughts on design, innovation, and technology; lessons on culture, principles and community; and ideas to improve strategies, processes, and wellbeing. It’s written with an entrepreneurial spirit, an ethos of openness, and a willingness and desire to drive and make social impact. Hard lessons make easy stories, and these are some of my personal accounts.
Product Series — 001
Learning how to create your own culture, one that makes sense for your organization and community, is extremely important to the health and wellness of the team, and, ultimately the success of your company. In many ways, I believe the type of culture you create sets the tone for everything that is to come or not.
There are hundreds of accounts that extol the virtues of building, maintaining and growing a culture. While every culture contains similar themes, and intentionality or purpose may or may not play a role, each is often distinct in their origin, incorporation, and expression.
If I were to attempt a working definition of culture, it’d include these broad outlines: the creation of a type of environment where the ability to participate in the mission comes naturally and the people who partake in the space feel inspired, challenged and supported.
It goes without saying that there can be difficulties in growing a company and that certain obstacles will present themselves at different stages of growth. But, invariably, the strength of a healthy culture exists in its ability to stretch itself to accommodate the highs and lows, and provide consistency amidst a shifting landscape.
There are no ready-made, one-size fits all prescriptions for how to create culture. It’s part of what can make a company so special. Each organization is completely different, and necessarily so. It’s part of the beauty of culture. It’s also part of the messiness.
Here are a few insights I’d consider in establishing a framework for culture:
Create a safe, welcoming, hospitable space, with absolutely zero tolerance for abusive personalities. There’s room for everyone, except the egocentric.
Endorse a culture that promotes learning, sharing discoveries, and values the power of collaboration.
Cross-disciplinarian approaches empower everyone to share their passions, interests, and talents, and, often inspire radically new approaches.
Healthy communication circulates proactively when it is unobstructed by hierarchies.
Hierarchies often disenfranchise teams and paralyze individuals, especially as it comes to supporting an ability to make decisions.
Seek out knowledge from everyone, working to create a shared sense of vocabulary and participate in the vision and mission of the organization.
If the space has safely been constructed, learn how to be vulnerable with yourself, your team, and with your community.
Be transparent, thereby enabling everyone to actively participate in the decision-making, and proactively be thinking about the problem-space implicitly and explicitly.
Celebrate mistakes with rigor, taking every opportunity to share these discoveries and build a cultural consciousness.
Actively solicit feedback from everyone, and encourage healthy conversations.
Promote experimentation and an attitude of openness that eradicates fear, blame, and complacency.
Collaboration is the journey-making of the stars; and diversity in collaboration ensures that every voice is heard.
False positivity breeds negativity, distrust and resentment; authenticity doesn’t need to be stated, only lived.
At the end of the day, I believe culture comes down to expectations: What kind of environment you want to build, how willing and committed you are to nurturing and maintaining that culture, and when and where you will be willing to compromise and adapt to changing needs and requests / when you will stand firm.
While it’s not easy to readily articulate the characteristics of a successful culture, and we must all push ourselves to more clearly define and demarcate the composition of these spaces, it is abundantly clear that the joys of healthy cultures are absolutely palpable to experience. On top of that, it’s also readily apparent that when a company has a successful culture, this sense of delight and happiness can be clearly translated into the product and experience.
Culture can take on so many forms. Find what works for you. These are are a few of my personal takeaways. What lessons have you learned?
