The 3 things most critical to building a great culture

A founder asked me what three things I thought were most important to building a great culture at an early startup.

A founder asked me what three things I thought were most important to building a great culture at an early startup.

This is what I said:

a) A mission statement that creates debate

I do not mean debate about the mission, but debate about the most effective way to pursue the mission given limited resources and other constraints that define startup reality. At AND 1 we wanted to “Be the number 1 basketball company in the world.” You could argue that meant selling the most shoes, having the best players in the NBA wear the shoes or launching a streetball video series that merged hiphop and hoops. The point is the mission statement encouraged debate built on the foundation of a shared goal — arguing about how we could get there inside the container of agreement on where we were going built a culture of best idea wins — and allowed everyone to have a voice.

b) A visible assembly line

Great cultures motivate people to do their best work. A culture that creates context for every one who contributes to the business — where/when/how they add to the final product and who does what before them, and after them is a culture that makes individual impact tangible and fosters a sense of ownership for each person on the team. It also helps everyone see how what they do impacts others in the company and reinforces a sense of team that great cultures share.

C) Autonomy to experiment

The cliche summary here is “trust.” The best cultures create space for everyone to experiment and accountability for specific results. Everyone on the team should be educated enough about the business, should have the understanding of their role, to create and test hypothesis. They should also be free to evaluate these experiments and surface things that didn’t work just as quickly (and loudly) as the things that do. There is learning in every experiment and celebrating the risks vs the results will lead to more innovation and faster improvements than just about anything else.

I guess it is sort of a “what I think I think” about building culture at a startup. Hope it helps you think about how to build a great culture at yours.