What is “culture”?

• In it’s simplest form, culture describes the feeling that employees get about the environment in which they work and the work they do
• It encapsulates a number of areas including “the collective values, beliefs, attitudes, behaviours, and norms that define the organisation's character and identity”
• More information here about what culture is, from ChatGPT - link
• "Culture’s just a fancy word for giving people something to believe in. It means clearly saying what you stand for as a company and then creating the infrastructure that empowers your team to believe in the same ideas” - link

In no particular order, here are my thoughts…

<aside> 💡 Principle 1: culture sprouts from the values of a business and are defined by the early employees within a company

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• The first five hires are the most important and will define the culture of the company. They are and should be your “culture carriers”

<aside> 💡 Principle 2: it can take just one person or mis-hire to completely change the culture within a team or business (”no assholes policy”)

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• “No assholes policy” was one of the values of a US e-commerce company I worked at - a criteria for hiring
• “A single bad hire left unfixed for long can kill a company”

<aside> 💡 Principle 3: transparency & over-communication goes a long way (”open honest communication”)

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• “Open honest communication” was one of the values of a UK proptech company I worked at
• If you think about the times where you worked somewhere and were on the other side, remember how it felt. Being open, honest, transparent and regularly communicating creates a positive culture - even if you don’t know all the answers, you can still communicate that

<aside> 💡 Principle 4: make people feel special before they join (during the interview process) but even more loved once they actually join (the value of amazing onboarding)

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