That title is actually the polite version of some advice that Brian Chesky, the CEO of AirBnB, got from someone who had just given him $150 million in startup funding. What the VC actually said, was “Don’t fuck up the culture.” Chesky suggests that the culture will set his company apart and what the culture will be remembered for in years to come. He wonders aloud in the post how many CEOs actually take shaping the culture seriously. And towards the end he links having a strong culture with not needing a lot of heavy rules and regulations:
The stronger the culture, the less corporate process a company needs. When the culture is strong, you can trust everyone to do the right thing. People can be independent and autonomous. They can be entrepreneurial. And if we have a company that is entrepreneurial in spirit, we will be able to take our next “(wo)man on the moon” leap. Ever notice how families or tribes don’t require much process? That is because there is such a strong trust and culture that it supersedes any process. In organizations (or even in a society) where culture is weak, you need an abundance of heavy, precise rules and processes.
I like what he is saying, but I think it also perfectly illustrates the challenges we have in working with culture, because we frequently don’t understand exactly what we’re doing when it comes to culture work. What exactly is a “strong” culture, and how do we create it and reinforce it? He suggests that when culture is strong, you can trust everyone to do the right thing, and where culture is weak, you need lots of rules and processes.
No.
The strength of a culture is measured in two variables:
- How effectively the cultural values drive the success of the enterprise, given its context and resources
- How clear the culture is both internally and externally, and how closely the words, actions, thoughts, and stuff all match.
A strong culture is one that works and one that is clearly and continuously understood and reinforced throughout the organization. It’s easy to be strong in one area and weak in the other, but a truly strong culture hits in both areas.
The first measure of strength has to be about what drives success. Does what’s valued in your organization actually help the organization succeed? In the case of Airbnb, they obviously value decentralization. They value the entrepreneurial spirit, where people are free to pursue what they think is going to work, where employees are trusted. I am assuming that is driving their success (they did get $150 million in funding, after all). And as much as I want to define a strong culture as one that is decentralized (it is one of the 12 principles we write about in Humanize), I don’t think they are one and the same. It’s only strong if decentralized is driving your success. It’s only strong if it works.
The second measure is about clarity and consistency, or perhaps a better word is alignment. Do people actually do what is valued? Is there alignment, or, as Chesky was implying, do we have the need to create strong policies that enforce what the leaders have said is valued. Here’s where it can get confusing. Airbnb has a decentralized and entrepreneurial culture, so creating strong central policies to enforce it does not make sense. But that is really part of the first variable. The strong policies would hurt the strength of his culture based on what’s driving success (decentralization). But there is a separate (yet related) question that is really not about the presence or absence of policies. The question is, is the culture clear and are the behaviors, words, thoughts, and other more tangible parts of your culture all in alignment.
For a culture to be strong, it has to be lived, not prescribed. That means you can’t have people ONLY following the orders in the rule book. That’s compliance, not strength. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have rules, and even fairly extensive ones. Look at the U.S. Military branches. They have heavy rules AND a strong culture, if you ask me. And they make their culture strong in a variety of ways, not just in their rule books.
Try not to confuse the values part of your culture work with the alignment part of your culture work. They obviously connect (if you have a decentralized culture, you won’t want to invest heavily in centralized rules to reinforce it), but they are not the same thing. If you want a strong culture, you’ll have to pay attention to both.
Great points, Jamie. I just read Chesky’s original post, so reading your additional comments to his post makes it so much more poignant.
Regarding the separation of work on values and work on culture alignment, the perspective I take is a bit different. Much of my perspective is from the Denison model of organizational culture, which includes Core Values as an internal aspect of an organization’s culture. This speaks more to your statement that they obviously connect. However, we do have different approaches toward clarifying and aligning core values than we would other aspects of culture (e.g., organizational learning) – and maybe this was the argument were making?
In general we have a more holistic approach to culture, how improving some elements affect others within the culture, but in terms of specializing on values, we have approached the Barrett Values Centre to get a much more in-depth take on values from the company to the individual level.
Interesting points. Thanks for the stimulating article. I do agree with many of the points.
With regard to culture, to me there is a strong difference between “strength of culture” and “fit of culture.” When I do culture work with companies, my goal is not strength as most will allude to it, Rather fit. A company can have the strongest culture and yet it still does not provide a distinct competitive edge because it is not “best fit.”
The other piece in my experience is that, while espoused values is a part of culture, culture is so much more. Everything … and I do mean everything in an organization, from its systems, rituals, people practices, reward systems, etc. — “speaks” what the company truly values, not necessarily what it claims they value.
When you say “fit” what exactly do you mean? Thought it an interesting concept and wanted to see if you might reply to get a clearer picture of it.