I really like the definition of the word “Culture” as a verb – “Maintains (tissue cells, bacteria, etc.) in conditions for growth”. Every organization has a culture.
The culture grows in response to the actions and accountability of all the members. The collective result is what defines culture and ultimately the brand, which is why it’s vital from the start to define it properly because once a culture and brand are created, it can spread like a virus.
My first day on the job at my previous real estate company, I was the victim of a theft. A fax meant for me, from a client who was hiring me to sell their property was swiped by another agent in the office. Her desk was strategically located next to the fax machine. She was, not surprisingly, the top listing agent in the company. Back then, the company had a listing fee policy that went something like this: “The first agent to list a property, will receive 10% of the commission generated from the deal, paid by the exclusive agent.” All that was required to list a property was a one-page time-stamped listing sheet with some basic information. When I brought up the heist to my manager, he had no response. When I finally sold the property, I paid out a 10% listing fee to the agent and made sure I never used the fax machine again. I also started to lock my drawers, just like everyone else in the office did.
A year later, as the top agent in the office, I brought up the fax faux pas to ownership, and they changed the policy. Not because it was the right thing to do, but because they wanted to keep me happy. I was a top producer.
Back then, the perk of being a top producer was the sizable check my clients paid me whenever I closed a deal. I never imagined that I’d be able to work for a company that bore all the risk, paid all the overhead, and gave me 70% of the gross income. What an incredible arrangement! Everyone at the company was happy because everyone was making money. But as time passed, other top producers started to demand more: Free car services. Higher splits. More advertising dollars. Expense accounts. Free lunch. Special deals. No consistency. A few opportunistic producers became more and more empowered because the leadership feared losing them. Most people weren’t happy.
I didn’t ask for more. The deal to me was beyond fair and equitable and asking for more in my mind would have tipped the scales. After this happened, there was a culture shift. The squeaky wheels got greased. Bad behavior was rewarded. People with good intentions were penalized. The culture morphed. The culture and brand changed. I left.
It is both the big and small things that make up the culture in a company, which is why culture is so complicated and difficult to describe. The actions of your peers translate into a feeling about your environment.
When you call Zappos (the online shoe store) and ask the representative for a pizza delivery, they don’t send you away. They ask you what toppings you’d like and conference you with the local pizza delivery company. This is a powerful statement about their culture and brand. “Delivering happiness to customers employees and vendors“. SpaceX’s brand statement is “to revolutionize space technology with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets”. You can picture the people who work at these companies. Brands (and company culture) are like magnets. They attract like mindedness and repel opposites. People are drawn to the environment that most represent their goals and values. The more they embody the values, the more powerful the brand. The more aligned the culture is with their personal DNA, the happier they are.