S2E6: Evolution of Culture

Speaker A: Welcome to People on Purpose, where each episode we explore how founders can navigate building businesses where people and profits can coexist on purpose. Welcome back to People On Purpose. I know it's been a few weeks since I've been here, and I'm just so thankful that all of you have been reaching out and checking in and enjoying the first episodes of People on Purpose Season two. I'm even more excited to jump into the last chunk of episodes for this season that will be released weekly over the coming months. But more than that, I think that it's been really helpful to chat with so many of you, whether you're founders of creative small businesses just getting going with building a team, or you're just more in the trenches of trying to figure out how to do what you have to do to stay compliant while you're scaling your business. To some of you that have reached out, that have really established business models that are really just in the throes of all of the challenges that come with the scaling decisions you've already made, and you're realizing that it takes a little bit more attention and energy to your people than you realized to make sure that everybody is riding in the same boat down the same river. So I know that those conversations can also feel a little bit scary when you start to think about what the implications are of some of these big topics. Especially because so much of being a CEO, being a founder of a business, is really putting together those strategies to get to the next level, and executing on them can feel a little bit daunting when it comes to something so intangible as your company culture. So the idea for this episode really came out of just talking about what it actually means to have a company culture isn't enough. It's actually about once you've sort of established what you want your culture to feel like, and then you've also had input from your team members and people that you've involved in the growth of your business over the years. And so culture has been pushed and updated and shaped in a way that maybe you didn't expect in the first place. Also, your priorities have changed over the years, which means that things that were really important to you when you first started your business that affect your internal culture may not really feel as important anymore. And depending on the size of your business, it can even feel completely irrelevant to talk about culture at all. And I think in a lot of cases, when I think about culture, I think about it as more of a root cause to other systemic issues within your business. And Sometimes the root causes are the hardest to find, and they're also the hardest to acknowledge. So on the scale of being a business owner, when things are already really hard, so thinking about tackling something that is intangible and also kind of abstract can feel like a waste of time. And I'm here to tell you that in working with businesses that have even had revenue of $500,000 a year, to have made a hundred thousand dollars so far in their whole business, all the way up until we're talking about hundreds of million dollars of revenue, we have seen a similar pattern along the way, and that's that the more in that our founders and their company leaders are with the culture that they've established, the more success that they have in creating a pathway forward for their people to succeed. And I'm. That is not to say that you have to be perfect at creating and implementing culture, but what it is to say is that it does take constant attention and work. So just like any relationship that you have in your life, it takes additional effort, it takes additional time. You have to go out of your way to. To push for growth. You have to do those hard things and have those hard conversations in order to get to the next level. And if we're being honest, culture is the thing that should be discussed in every single interaction when it has to do with making big decisions for your business. And it's often the thing that is skipped. So in our practices with our clients, one of the things that we always want to touch on in every single decision that's being made, whether it's a staffing decision, a organizational structure decision, or we're brainstorming back and forth about how to solve an intern internal problem for capacity? Um, so many different things that could be going on in the business. We always want to kind of run that through. What does this actually look like in regards to the company culture that we've already established and created? Because all of our clients have an established and directed company culture by the time we get to the point where we're helping them with strategic decisions. So what does it look like? What does it actually mean to create a place of evolution, growth, and attacking new opportunities? The agility that's required that comes with running businesses in general. But what does it actually mean to be able to help your culture reflect that and not have it be holding your business back? And I think that's what this topic today really hits on. Because culture, as we've discussed a million times before, isn't something that you just create one time and you lock in. We've focused a lot about that in the past because I think that for many of us, and maybe you're listening to this episode thinking maybe I should start there because I haven't actually established or defined the culture within my organization. There isn't a guidebook, there isn't a, um, outline to introduce my team to what our culture should look and feel like. There isn't a set of behaviors that we consider the norm. There isn't a place for people to go back to. So if that's, you don't feel overwhelmed, we have plenty of discussions around that. But this culture is really, or this conversation is really going to be a little bit more about what happens after you've established a cultural dichotomy within your business in the past, or you've established a cultural set of practices, or, you know, you've kind of already gone out of your way to define what your culture looks like and then what happens as you and your business and your leaders change along the way. Because the fact is, culture is kind of an ever evolving thing. So yes, of course we have to start in the beginning, we have to create it once, we have to lock it in. But we should expect that it's going to evolve as your business evolves. We should expect that things are going to push up against a culture that no longer fits. We should expect and allow for friction when it comes to defining that culture. But what most founders don't realize, and this is a big problem across many of our clients and also just in general in practices where you are leaning on people to help you make business decisions that aren't a day to day person in your business. So a fractional operations firm like ours, a fractional HR firm, a fractional um, operations executive, all of these things that you bring into your business that technically don't work for you, they are all still going to be major players in your culture. So realistically, a shortcut to get the best results out of anyone that is advising you at the level that you're at as a founder is to make sure that your culture is locked in so that they can bend and adapt to what you've already established. And then it can be a kind of guidepost for not just what decisions are going to make you the most money, but how you're going to be able to manage the change that uh, come alongs with them. So everything in business should be evolving. We should be able to have something really solid to stand on, but not afraid to move and shake within the discussions around those types of practices, culture is no different. So I think that one of the biggest problems that we see is that founders don't realize that culture is changing until something is broken. And then sometimes it's a little bit too late. Maybe we've lost that talent, or, um, we've established a leader in the organization that is going upstream as opposed to the practices that we've already established. Or maybe you've kind of lost the plot as a founder and you've realized that you're not acting in the behaviors and intentionality around the culture that you've established because the business needed a different version of you that you had to grow into. And now those cultural norms don't actually relate to the type of leader that you are. So I'm here to tell you to be a little bit selfish. I'm here to tell you to turn the mirror in on yourself a little bit and not just think about how culture is impacting the rest of your team, but also making sure that you're putting yourself as a founder, in the best position to add value to that culture and not take away from the experience that your team is having because you haven't addressed your own evolution and your own role and how things have changed. So I think that there is always these little cultural things that people come up with, and I shouldn't say little, because they probably feel, and they are. They do take a lot of work. And maybe those come in the forms of your vision, your values, your mission. You want everyone on your team to be able to spit your company's mission back at you at any moment. But we also wanted to have some actual meaning. Maybe you even have a deck that talks about your culture. Maybe you talk about those behaviors and actions. But the truth is, if that same material that you created when you started your business 20 years ago, or whether you just started your business now, or if you don't have those. Those materials existing at all, that it still should be something that you are revisiting on a regular basis. We force our clients to do it once a year, but at the end of the day, you can revisit this at any point, especially during times of high personal growth, when you've gone through major changes, when your business has evolved. We all have those moments. If you're listening to this podcast, you've had enough success to know those moments when you're like, and then my business blew up and I got really successful, and a lot of things started to change in the moment that you're Starting to realize you're in that position is the perfect time to take a deep breath, slow down and make some time to identify what cultural shifts are going to need to happen. So the reality of the situation is culture exists whether you design it intentionally or not. So it's going to be shaped by how your decisions are made, how conflict is handled, what behaviors get rewarded, what behaviors get ignored or looked over, who gets hired, who gets promoted, and the way that they are interacting with your company, the reputation they have within your company, and also how your leaders are, uh, are showing up as a result of, uh, your cultural identification. What I mean by all that is that we have to realize that culture is the behavioral operating system of your company, which means that if it isn't established as a system within your business, then there is no way to reinforce it. There is no way to draw those guidelines. And they're, you're kind of letting your team out there just to try to figure it out and survive on their own. What I love to tell teams when they're onboarded, and we're going to talk a lot about this in the coming weeks, is how to make sure that your onboarding is setting yourself up for success, to make sure the right people are in the right places, doing the right things and behaving the right way. Because realistically, the work that people do is the least interesting thing about their job. So if you are showing up every day and you're not acknowledging that the way that your people are interacting with your culture, their behaviors and each other is a huge part of how they're showing up in service to your company, then you're actually missing a huge piece of what it's like to be a leader. So one thing I really want to talk about is just identifying that there are several phases of culture in your business. And for these phases, we're going to talk a little bit about where they, where they are, what should be expected, and maybe you can help, you can identify where you fall on this scale. So realistically, at the first stage, at the first phase, it's kind of that founder driven culture. It's basically everything about your personality. So in this type of discussion around culture, you're going to have a lot of really informal, scrappy, fast decisions that are made. There's not a lot of structure, but there's a lot of trust. So there's a lot of gut feelings and there's a lot of, well, I know that my boss would like this, or if you are hiring a team at that early stage, where you have a few employees, they are ready to be informed of, uh, what behaviors are going to be rewarded. It's at this phase that it can feel really unimportant to define culture because the people that are working for you likely know you really well. They know what to expect from you when they're making decisions. They know what the company goals are because they get a lot of time with you. They get to understand not only what's going on with the business, your goals, your clients, your services, your products, they get insight into all that because likely many of them are doing a couple different jobs. And so they have that cross functional communication without even having to try. And at that stage, the company is going to scale really quickly without a lot of defined expectations. But in the early days, culture is basically just you, your energy, your standards, your work ethic. The problem is that's not going to scale because everybody is going to bring a different version of all of those things. And also they're bringing their own expectations of you and they're bringing their own experiences. So culture can change really quickly without you getting to decide what it's looking like. Because people are bringing their own biases into their interactions with each other. So what I always say is like, the hardest part of having a business is when you are in that phase where you have less than 10 employees because everything is still coming back to you. And so every action that you make has to be intentional and forward thinking. So at that point there's a lot of pressure on you all the time. And it's also the time when you likely have the least expertise of support, which means that everything really does rely on you to make those decisions. This is also one of the ways that you can help put guardrails in place in a very simple and straightforward way to help to kind of keep people on the same path that are coming in to work for you, get success from them even sooner, and also identify those people that are going to be with you for the long, long haul. Because every great leader in a small business is going to have a tight knit pot of people that are going to be with them for a while in the beginning, because the people that you're attracting into your business at this stage are usually people that really share your vision without having to understand it inside and out. They're going to be people that are going to be, want to, that are going to want to be a part of building something with you. They're not necessarily going to be the people that are going to be with you. When you get to the next stage and then you have to reevaluate kind of where you stand in all of these decisions and on a, uh, on a month by month basis. Because those people that might be with you at this founder cultural stage of the business are uh, maybe not going to be the same people that are going to help get you to those like higher level revenue goals or you know, if we're being really honest, they may not have the skill sets that their positions entail. We what this kind of looks like is that we start to see that there is a misalignment of titles. People are over titled in these positions. They're given titles that don't necessarily match the work that they're doing. This is where we can really take a little bit of a page out of corporate, because in corporate structures it's very clear and straightforward, uh, the reporting culture within titles and things like that. So when it comes down to, I guess the decisions that we're making at this founder culture stage of business, they can be really far reaching even if you only have a few people on your team. So even making the smallest move forward to define and develop what your culture looks like at this stage is going to be able to be really impactful really fast. Which means that it's going to fast track your scaling because like I said, culture is going to be that root cause issue when you start to run into stuff where you're starting to, you know, start seeing team issues and things like that. And just remember, we're not really looking for perfection here, but a little bit of definition and a little bit of established understanding of what you want your culture to look like right now is a great way to start. Next we have our second stage which is we're getting a little bit closer to having more people involved. We're getting a little bit closer to having a mix of personalities. You may have, uh, some specialized folks that are coming in that aren't necessarily super aligned with your mission, but may feel really connected to the work that they're doing within your company, which is great. We really need those experts to be on the same page. You have a big mix of personalities. There's a lot of collaboration and blurred lines. Everyone does a little bit of everything and culture feels kind of fun, but it's a little messy. Maybe you're getting people together a couple times a year, but you maybe haven't even established the policies around what that looks like or what your team can expect during those types of excursions or trips or connective tissue that's holding them all together. So there's a lot of really fun stuff going on here, but there's also some risks that are associated with it. And one of them is one of our, one of our actual company values, which is that you want to make sure that you have really clear accountability. And at this phase you're going to see that there is really unclear accountability at all levels, which means that people might be confused about what their role is and how they can best show up. Now, I am so lucky to have a team that has been with me through so much and I care so deeply about them. And I really feel that I feel very held and cared for by them too. At this phase of expansion and paradigm where we have two different audiences that we're serving, and some of you are going to be part of either of these audiences, those founders that need those really specific advisory type of mechanisms that we provide for teams that have 20, 30, 40 employees. And then you may, or you may be somebody that's kind of in that early team culture stage that's under 10 employees. It doesn't mean that this isn't a relevant discussion because whether you're a founder that's been in the game for 10 years and you've got 35 employees under your belt and you're listening to this podcast thinking just something a little off, and I can't figure out what it is, we're, you know, hemorrhaging talent. There's something going on with my executive team. I'm feeling a lot of fear based, um, decision making going on. Like, what does that look like? It likely comes all the way back to your culture. So being able to revisit that, uh, and understand that if your culture has been pieced together and it's been held together by some strings along the, over the years and now we're getting to a place where you're kind of like, ooh, that doesn't feel 100% right. It's probably because there isn't a solid set of accountability when it comes to how people behave, behave with each other. And what we often hear from founders at this stage is things feel chaotic and I can't figure out why. I don't mean to make this about mental health, but everybody here knows I'm such a proponent of therapy. Entrepreneurship has been the biggest self development lesson I've ever had and it's also pushed me to grow into things that I didn't expect that I would ever experience. And I feel like at this stage of business that when we feel that way, it feels very much like things in my life feel chaotic right now, and I don't understand why. Uh, maybe even you're checking if you're a high achiever listening to this podcast, you've checked everything off the list. You've got the house, you've got the cute apartment, you've got the dogs, you've got the family, you've got the, you know, whatever it is that's been on your list. You've got your fitness routine, you've got your diet under control. Like, whatever the situation is, you feel like you've checked all these boxes that have created a life for you, that that is supposed to feel calm and happy and focused on fulfillment and growth for your business and your family and your life. But you're like, why is it so much chaos? Why can't I get ahead of this? It's usually because what we need to do is revisit this early team culture stage where we're talking a little bit about that accountability. That translates directly over to, like, oh, my gosh, something in my life feels off. You're not going to necessarily always want to go to, like, well, if I fix this, everything will be okay. Usually what's required is a closer look at how your actions have impacted the people around you or how the people around you are impacting your life now. And that is something that we have to deal with in a real root cause kind of way. And that means addressing your culture is kind of like therapy for your business, but in a different way, because it's not going to be about. We don't often have the time that we do in therapy to go through and heal and figure out the why behind the what. Instead, you can make a big impact in your culture now, if things do feel chaotic and you don't know why, just by addressing the fact that culture is the root cause and you can go and deal with it now and figure it out. And I think that that is one way that founders can really take control of the situation around them. Some of the founders that I work with, that I really admire and look up to, and we have great relationships and, you know, we talk about this a lot, is are the ones that are not afraid to take immediate action and address the root cause one, it's when it's needed. So the beautiful thing about business is it's not that complicated. You know, our brains are way more complicated. We have to look at our inner child and all this stuff to figure out why things feel chaotic in our life. Whereas if we're going to take a look at our business and we're having a similar situation, I'm going to tell you right now, it's not because you're using the wrong software. It's not because you need to hire a developer to make an AI work for you. It's not because you are, you know, not. Maybe your marketing team or your ads aren't scaling the way that you wanted to, or your marketing team isn't functioning the way that you wanted to, or your social media person isn't engaging enough, or whatever the case may be, it's because you haven't defined the culture. So you're welcome. There's your answer. Congratulations. You can definitely go to the link in the podcast, show notes and request a call from me and we can talk about how we can help you. But at the end of the day, I want to make sure that we're focusing on the fact that culture is a root cause issue for a lot of these things that are probably popping up in your business that drew you to listen to this episode in the first place. Place. Was that some tough love? Maybe I should take a break. Anyway, um, the third piece, or the third phase or stage of the evolution of culture, we could just, like, put any number of employees on this. But at the end of the day, we are getting to a place now where there's probably a lot of structure going on in your business regardless, and the things that you are going to want to address are going to have a little bit more of a corporate feel. And for small business owners, and I hear this a lot when it comes time to start to realize that your business has problems that you hated dealing with. If you worked in corporate, congratulations, you've made it. You're a real CEO. You're a real founder. This isn't one of those, like, weird situations where you're calling yourself a founder, but you've never actually founded anything. You are at the point where you are actually craving the things in corporate that you ran from. And I think that that's one of the things that we hear from some of our really insightful clients is they're like, I really resisted doing this work because my experience in. In corporate is not something I want to replicate in small business. So I guess this is where I just have to say, and this is maybe my Virgo, Virgo energy. You know, I'm a Taurus. Virgo, Virgo. I want to hear what all of your guys's big threes are, et cetera. Um, but this is where structure kind of enters the chat, I guess we could say. So things start happening where you have managers and job descriptions and policies and onboarding and really high level expectations of your team. You're probably investing a lot more money in their success, whether it's through something simple like making sure that there is a really solid and clear onboarding process that outlines everything that's expected of them. Maybe you're measuring KPIs on a regular basis. You've established performance review processes. There's one on ones. There's lots of opportunity to have a, uh, back and forth around all of the things that you may be addressing, um, on the high level of business with other people that are leading other people in your business. You can go back one episode and listen to that difficult conversations conversation. If you want to talk more about leaders, leading leaders. But one thing I really want to point out is that there is a big risk when it comes to this area of business if you are so resistant to having a corporate culture or a, a corporate feeling culture. Because if you resist the structure that needs to be established, you are essentially giving your company and your team free reign to make your culture whatever they want it to look like. And what we often see in this part of the process is that founders are like, you know what, I've lost the plot and I've got to get dialed back in. And then they start to micromanage their team. Now there is a time and a place for micromanagement. I think that it comes with, you know, at its core, at its definition, there really isn't, but there is a time and a place for what we all consider micromanagement, where you're kind of up your team's ass about whatever they're doing, making sure that they are as productive as they can be, making sure that they're establishing a pathway forward for your business and making sure they're handling their stuff so that you can leave it in their hands and move on. But realistically, your culture should be the number one thing preventing you from having to step into that role. So if you're starting to feel like things are chaotic and we, I don't really want to feel like they're corporate things, but I'm starting to crave that structure. I'm here to give you a little bit of permission. Your team is likely craving it too. It's not, I'm not going to infantilize people and say it's just like little kids, the better. You know, a lot of them do really, really well. With structure. And so at the end of the day, that is really not the type of way that we want to talk about our teams. But more on just a human nature level, we can easily say something like that about children because it's easy to. But what I would just say, humans in general crave structure, especially when they want to do a good job. My example that I'll give you here is that you all know that I have adhd. I've gotten to connect with many of you about that and the unique struggles that coming come with running a business and trying to, like, have a life and stuff when you have competing, like, your brain's basically competing with itself all the time. But I think that there is something really powerful about understanding what your own weaknesses are and how they become strengths in how you're defining your culture through this evolutionary phase. So the number one thing is if you're in this phase where you're like, God, I'm really craving structure. But I don't really want to have to hire an HR firm or an, uh, people and culture advisor to come in and help me figure this out. It's so corporate. We're a small team. It's supposed to be fun. Our Slack channels are goofy. People send memes, we cuss, we talk about inappropriate stuff. We talk about, you know, the dates that people are going on. Like, I don't want to have to rein all that in. That sucks bucks. Well, you don't have to. You don't have to have a culture that is going to prevent the beautiful things that are already happening in connectivity on your team. You can actually build a culture where structure helps to protect the people on your team. Give them guiding light moving forward, and have people have even more freedom to express themselves in connection with your team. There's nothing wrong with wanting to have a relaxed and not HR approved culture. My team's culture is one of the most inappropriate ones you'll ever see. And at the end of the day, I am 100% sure that my team knows that they are protected, their rights are protected, and that they can have whatever they want to have within their job if they want it. If they come to me and tell me that something wasn't right, they're not feeling good, they feel like they're missing out, they're craving growth in certain areas. It's not because I have a. It's not because I have a lack of structure and I've let them become whoever they are. It's because the structure is so clear and straightforward that they know the bounds in which they can come to me and ask for more. And there is nothing that makes me happier. Of course, like my people that are listening to this, that are helping me with all of this, are going to be like taking notes. There's nothing that makes me happier than when my team member comes to me and says I've been crushing it, time for you to get give me a raise. There is nothing that makes me happier. There is also nothing that makes me more anxious than having to say, well my bottom line can't really cover that right now, but let's revisit in six weeks. But what makes them happy is that they know that I will. And I think that at the end of the day that is really what we're trying to create. Not a place where people get whatever they want, but a place where they know that they can get truth, honesty and direct communication from the people that are in charge of your career. We spend over a hundred thousand hours of our lives working. Unfortunately, capitalism has made it that way. We can make it fun, we can make it interesting. And it's not structure that kills it, it's protecting it. So at the end of the day when you're starting to feel that craving for a little bit more of the things that they had in corporate, I will say that it does take a special kind of finesse in order to make those things come to life. So if you're in this position, know now the answer isn't going to chat GPT and helping it sort you sort you out, telling you what to do to make sure that you're enforcing all of these cultural things, telling you what to do to create a new culture and how it's evolved and how can you create structure within your team? Actually the way that you want your culture to look is the easy part. The rollout, the change management, the discussions, those are going to be the things that you're going to need, need support with. Because this, these types of changes are root cause changes, the foundation of your business. They should not be taken lightly. So if they haven't been naturally reinforced, it's going to feel a little jarring for your team. So being able to communicate directly and effectively is going to make the biggest difference across the board. So now let's say that you're in phase four. Maybe that's what brought you here. You're like, I'm already an established business, I have gone through all of these phases. I, I feel connected to each one of those in my own way. I remember feeling like God damn it. I have to get my culture in order because now I really want some corporate structure and that makes me feel annoyed. I, I believe that at this stage of business you have the hardest job of all. So if you're a founder of a scaling company, I'm not going to put revenue markers on it, but let's just say hypothetically, like you're at least within the 25 employee range. This, you could have gotten there a little bit sooner. There's definitely clients we work with that have very small, powerful, lean teams. But scaling isn't inhibited by the number of people on their team. So we're talking about our product based businesses, things like that. Um, but in this particular case it kind of doesn't matter your industry, it doesn't matter what you're doing. It could be service, it could be product, it could be, um, technology. Like there's all different things that you, how we show up in the world, how we make money, what kinds of businesses we've created as founders. But in this particular stage it is so important for you to not only have intentional culture but, but you have to make sure that it is very specifically designed and reinforced through every single piece of your systems. So what that looks like is a cultural filter on every discussion around a change or an adaptation that you're making in the business. That includes really strategic values that are guiding your decisions. That includes making sure that your leaders are trained and supported. That could include actually having an aligned executive that is helping to be the thread between you as a founder and your executive team. So you can definitely reach out to me for that. Um, you also have feedback systems which are going to show you the reality of how your culture is impacting your team. You're going to have ways to collect information from your team as input so that you can make sure that you are addressing needs while also establishing and re establishing the cultural norms that you've decided are going to get your business to the next level. You're going to have a culture that backs up your leadership style and you're going to have expectations of performance from the top down so that you can show up fully as yourself, as a leader and who you are now. When you started your business, you were not the same leader or cultural leader as you likely are if you've started to hit milestones that have included multiple teams, millions of dollars in revenue and really high level goals within your business business. Especially if you have an agile business that requires creativity and innovation. So on this level, we want to make sure that not only do we have the structure to back it up, but we have the behaviors uh, dialed in for what is rewarded and what isn't. Just like back at the beginning of the episode. But we are also having kind of embedded cultural rituals that have likely developed from a very natural place place. So this isn't just like a. Well, Kira's company has a influence channel on Slack where they share all the skincare products and stuff that they're buying and blah, ah, blah blah. And that sounds really fun and I want to have that kind of culture. I mean yes, it is really fun, highly recommend it. We probably need to kick that back up a notch actually in our company and start sharing stuff again. But realistically you can find different ways to create connective tissue within your team in an intentional way that is reinforced by your culture. So for example, and this is like kind of a top of, you know, top of mind thing. So of course I'm verbally processing as I'm saying it. So if it makes no sense Kayleigh, please delete it. Um, but what I'm saying, what I was going to say is that we have this opportunity to have our culture shine through, through small practices that seem like they're going to be really small. So let's say hypothetically our values that are guiding our decisions, maybe we're an eco friendly company that wants to reduce consumerism. So having an influenced channel where we all talk about all the crap we're buying on Amazon, probably not that culturally aligned. But if you have a team that is passionate about the environment and you want to make sure that those values are guiding your decisions, then think about a way that you can create connective tissue of how people are living their values in their own lives, especially for mission driven companies. And think about how to create conversation around that within your culture. And don't be afraid if people are having conversations with each other outside of their interactions with you. Because at the end of the day it's just like anything else. We can only show up a hundred percent as ourselves. And if our uh, team decides that that's not good enough or there's going to be gossip or, you know, whatever the case may be, they're talking about stuff without including other people that's fully within their rights. And it's actually great to make sure that you are allowing for that connective tissue to exist between employees. You are going to have higher retention if your team members are connected to other people at their company than anything else. If you have a best friend at work, you're highly likely to be much more happy and the happier you are at work, the more likely you are to stay. And so, I mean, I can try to influence what you want in your culture all day, but that's not what this episode is about. You get to decide what you want your culture to be and we get to help you come make it come to life in a way that makes sense. But honestly, when you get to the stage where you have intentional culture, this is where culture becomes a leadership discipline. Meaning that not only do you have to make sure that you are showing up fully within the culture that you are defining and reinforcing, but you also have to make sure that anyone that has influence over the progress of your business, over each other. The conversations that are having, or even those folks that you're putting in those executive leadership positions are leading their teams in the right way. They're bringing themselves fully to the table. And you're also enabling them to make sure that they feel connected to your culture. That's why those feedback systems are important. That is why acknowledging that your culture evolves over time, not just because of who you are as a leader, but also because of the other leaders that you're bringing into your organization. They are going to have m much more significant input over how the rest of the team is developing. And if you're trying to fight against that and have people fit in a specific box, that means culture is a reflection of you back, like back in those first couple phases, you are going to be inhibiting the growth of your company because essentially you're micromanaging a leadership personality. We can put policies in place all day about how people request time off. We can put policies all day in place about how managers have conversations. We can even support managers in planning those conversations. But one thing that we can't do as founders is try to stifle who people really are. When we decide that they are worthy of being paid by our company and helping us scale this business, we have to let them become fully themselves. That doesn't mean that we don't give them the structure. We already did that. We want to give them structure, but we also want to enable and empower them to make culture into how they lead as well. So that kind of two way relationship is going to be really important as you are establishing your culture year over year. My goal for you as a scaling founder, if you are one of those founders, is that when you're listening to this episode and you're thinking, God, that is where I'm at. I have Leaders in place. I have. I already have performance reviews. Kira, you already did our handbook. Like, we've got our onboarding process on track. People apply. Hundreds of people apply for every job. Our culture is well known. We have a killer employer, brand, blah, blah, blah. All these things that make you amazing, make you get here. Not trying to discredit them, but that's what we're talking about here. Now, we are at the place where you have to be able to be so discerning about the way that your leaders are impacting your culture. Because that discernment of not only who you're bringing in, but how you help them to reinforce it is going to impact your culture whether you like it or not. And a good leader and a good founder should feel so confident within their leadership that your whole goal is to reinforce culture while you are leading your leadership. So if you want to talk a little bit more about the strategy and the difference in leading leaders, this is the linchpin of it. You're guiding them through not only the impact that they are making through the metrics that they're hitting and the way that they're managing their team m but you are also gently guiding them in a way that is supportive of your culture while retaining that input and feedback. You are going to remember those things. And then when it's time to revisit your culture year over year year, we are going to hash those things out. What you've learned, how you've developed, how you've seen things in action, what you've liked, what you haven't, and what your leaders are bringing to the table in regards to how your culture should shake out. Because realistically, there is going to be a part of this process where your culture does need to be able to bend and adapt and mirror the people that you've brought on. So while we do want to create that structure around it, there has to be some adaptability there. And we have to be confident and comfortable enough in our leadership to allow our culture to grow and flourish on its own. We don't want to be out there with the lawnmower every two weeks trying to inhibit people's path to growth or change the way that they're thinking about the way they work or change the way that they're behaving, or if they do something a little bit out of line, making them feel like they can't bring something to the table. But instead, your job is to be discerning over those situations where maybe a behavior was exhibited that previously wouldn't have been Accepted. But there is two sides to the story. So being able to understand and listen to your people about what they need need based on what they're seeing on the ground in your industry and your business, that is what's going to make a really, really strong culture. It's like a conversation between the people that work for you and these foundational factors that is led by. And there's a high level of discernment from you. So if you really take on what it means to be a leader, I would argue that the number one thing is that you have a deep understanding of your culture and you're also confident enough to let in it shape who you become. So before we go, and I know this, I could just talk about this for 157 years. But realistically, I really want to talk about some of those moments in which your culture can break. And when I say break, I don't mean like, oop, we gotta like totally go back to square one and figure it out. But it really will start to have. There will be a few moments in your business when your culture is gonna be more fragile than ever. And it's when it needs to be the strongest, longest. So realistically, uh, when you are in a phase of rapid hiring, being able to clearly know and understand every single person you hire is going to be impossible. So the more solid and straightforward you are about your culture, the more confident you are about how you want people to behave, the better that hiring is going to go. So if you're at a phase in your business where you are about to start hiring, or you maybe you just got a, um, large round of funding and you know that that means expansion of your team, that is going to be a place where you are going to need to focus on culture first. And this shouldn't be that time consuming, especially if you leverage experts that really understand how this works, like us. But it should be very clear. So I'm talking, you're about to hire a bunch of people, you've got a bunch of money burning a hole in your pocket, you know that you need help, you're tired, you're at the end of your rope. Especially if you are listening to this and maybe you're a founder or senior leader in a business business and you know that you're at the end of your rope or you're feeling a cultural change around you. This is when you need to actually take a day to revisit these cultural foundations. You can afford to spend this time and if you don't, then you're just going to be doing it again in a couple months and it's going to be a very expensive mistake. So I don't mean to scare you, but if you are at a phase where rapid hiring is happening, that is the most important time to start to spend a little bit more effort on what your culture looks like. Not to relate everything back to therapy, but if you really think about it, if you are at a phase in your life when you are about to be, you're in a transition period and you're about to be forced into growth, you don't then abandon the foundational work. That's, uh, when you lean in to your mental health and you lean in to your core values, your expectations and your understandings, and you let that help guide you through these difficult decisions. Culture can be something that makes you feel secure, it makes you feel confident, and it helps you make decisions like major investment in people, because don't even get me started about turnover and how expensive that is and blah, blah, blah, because you already know that. So it can be really scary to think about not only the vulnerability of letting somebody into your business that's going to make a huge difference or promoting people or even people that don't work for you but are coming in at entry level. It can be really scary about bringing those people in too. Especially if you're a founder with a presence. If you have a digital presence and you're a founder, your reputation is really important because it only takes one LinkedIn post or one glassdoor post to not be able to attract the talent you need in the future. Another reason that you need to hire us at Paradigm, but all of that is to say that when the other time when culture is going to break, break after, like when you're going through a big hiring freeze is when you start to see that there needs to be some changes in your leadership. Maybe people aren't showing up in the way that you've decided. Maybe you went through the rapid hiring and now you're a few months down the road and you're like, oh, I made a couple of mistakes along the way. What am I supposed to do? That is a very important time to recognize that your culture is breaking. And even though you might be now all of a sudden doing three people's jobs jobs, you have to be able to put aside the time to ensure that you are being able to build that culture back up. The other thing that really makes a big difference is if you're going through a process where your systems are about to change or Your systems are no longer scaling with you. I know that sounds really technical, like, okay, here you just hire somebody to fix your project management system, whatever. Yes, do that. But also on another level, your systems, as they change, it's another opportunity for your, your, your team is going to be so impacted by that every single minute of the day. So you can either have that new system work for you and work towards your culture, or you can have it break your culture. Because realistically, it sounds kind of silly because culture is so abstract, but the, the systems in which your people are operating, non cultural but technical, those systems are going to be something that they are interacting with every day. So like if you've ever, even if you've ever had a job, you know that there's, if there's ever a time when the systems or the way in which you're doing your job changes, it's one of the most stressful times for an employee. So if you don't get control and make sure that those systems are also going to be reflective of the culture that you want to build, and you're putting a why behind the what of these changes and managing that change, you're going to end up in a situation, unfortunately where your culture's going to be broken. You have a beautiful system that nobody wants to use, and then you start to see some turnover over. And finally, if you are going through a period of burnout as a founder, this is when it is important to get back to the root of why you started everything in the first place. And culture is a great tool in which to do that, to be able to analyze, identify and define the mission and why you started in the first place is going to help bring you that fulfillment that's going to prevent that burnout. So realistically, the main thing that you should take away, if you are thinking about why should I care about culture at all, where do I stand? Yada yada yada. Just remember that culture doesn't always collapse overnight night it drifts and it changes. And there's a lot of movement that happens over time. It's your job as a founder to be at the head of that boat and make sure that you're well resourced and making decisions that are enforcing your culture. Because if you don't invest in it and if you don't put in the time, it will come back and haunt you during the times when you need it to do things for you the most. So just like we always say, HR policies are kind of the black and white. They get to be the bad guy in the business. They get to drive a lot of of things that, so you don't have to have conversations over and over again about stuff and, you know, like how people are showing up to work, how they should be acting, things like that. Culture is going to be the thing that is going to take that to the next level and start to actually make all those foundational pieces of your business really work for you. But defining your culture is only the first step. Adapting it and evolving with it is going to be the thing that makes your success actually different than other founders. So your goal really isn't to keep the same culture forever. We do really stress that you have to define it, but the goal is that you need to make sure that it's involving intentionally and not accidentally. And that also doesn't mean that you are holding it so tightly in your hands that no one can ever contribute to change for it. What? It's actually quite the opposite. We want you to feel so confident in your culture that as it grows and adapts, you are okay with having a little bit less solid boundaries around what it looks like for people to behave because you're bringing people into your business that you're hiring to do a killer job. And that means that are going to have a high level impact on your culture. And allowing them in is going to be something that you are going to be able to ride out for a long period of time. Because the more people that you have that are helping you define and evolve what your business looks like, the less likely that you are going to feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders when things need to be adjusted or they're going bad. This is going to create so much buy in for your leadership team to help them, have them feel like they have a voice in the way that your culture has developed. So I challenge you now, even if you have a culture guide already, you're one of our clients. I know many of you. Listen. Love you. Hi. Um, or you've never heard of any of this stuff before and you're starting to feel a little overwhelmed about it and you want to go to ChatGPT and just write in some cultural stuff. That's a great place to start, a hundred percent. But first identify which phase you are. Like, which phase of this are you in? Are you in the piece where you're at, ah, founder culture and it's all about you. Are you in that secondary piece where you're starting to see that there needs to be a little bit more function in regards to how it's defined and how it's exhibited through your daily practices, or are you sort of at the higher level where you start to see that you need some more corporate structure and you're trying to resist that feeling? You might also be at that intentional culture stage where you've done a lot of these building blocks, but you're starting to recognize when culture needs readjustment. All of those times are a great time to address those this. So realistically, I know that this can be really overwhelming. But first, identify where your company culture is now and I. And then that should help guide you into what you should do next. But regardless, as we become more and more successful, as your businesses grow, as you have to adapt and change based on revenue markers, as you have to get feedback about your business, about your leadership, about who you are, all of those things are going to pop up from time to time. And to be able to know my culture is so defined that it's going to help me make this decision is a security that is really different from what many founders are experiencing now because they don't have a guiding light. They don't have a guide post. So they look externally for validation. They look externally for advice about all of these things from people that don't understand what their true desire is and how it's evolved. So, I mean, granted, some of you that are listening have had us in your pocket for a long time, so that's great. Keep coming to us for advice. That's literally my whole job. But some of you maybe haven't had that. And so you're gonna consider going outside of yourself to figure out how this is gonna work and how you can change it and how you can develop it. Make sure that you're talking to the right people that understand the impact of not only the cultural decisions that you're making, but who you are innately as a leader. And one step further than that, make sure that you can really stand behind the people that you're bringing into your business and know that the advice that you're giving you, that they're giving you, is going to impact the way that the people that you hire are going to behave. And that's a huge responsibility for a leader. So all of that is to say, I'm happy to be back on the mic, and I'm really looking forward to talking about more of these topics. Make sure the best thing that you can do is to share this episode, whether it's on LinkedIn or Instagram. Um, I really appreciate it when people are sending this out to everybody and apparently reviews are really important. So if you can do that, that would be great. Maybe ask your mom to do it too. But I don't actually care too much about getting into the ears of, you know, 30,000 people a day or whatever. It's more so that the people that need to hear this message are. And I know that us founders are a really tight knit community and I'm so grateful to be a part of it, um, and also be able to serve our community at such a high level level. But if you know that there is a founder that you think needs to hear this message, the best way to get my voice in their ears is literally to share it. So I appreciate you all listening and um, I know this one maybe wasn't quite as hilarious as I normally am, but um, we'll be back next week with a topic about basically the beginnings of your team and the beginnings of your employees experiences. So if you have any questions that you'd like me to answer about this on Instagram or LinkedIn, just please, uh, let me know. Shoot me a dm. I love Wednesdays when I get a whole bunch of dms about our episodes. Um, and also make sure you're subscribed to our newsletter, which will be linked in the show notes so that you don't miss an episode. And if you don't have time to listen, then you'll kind of get the high level overview to decide if it's one that you wanted to stick in your ears. So we'll talk soon and I hope you have a great rest of your week.