[ibimage==33323==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-center]The Sphero team participating in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
Culture is a hot topic among startups today. Companies often rave about the great environment their employees work in, but what really goes into it? What does it take to build a great culture?
To find out, we spoke with Josh Anderson, director of people at Ello, and Jim Booth, COO at Sphero.
Define who you are
Before all else, startups must figure out who they are, according to Anderson.
“I think the most fundamental thing for us in creating a culture was really defining who we are by way of defining our core values,” he said, adding that Ello’s culture aligns strongly with its product.
Over communication is key
The Ello team is very much about transparency and giving value to the people that work there. Through its product and its culture, Ello works to de-commoditize humans, to not treat them merely as means to an end, Anderson said.
One simple way startups can achieve such a culture is by communicating — a lot. Email and texts are convenient, but Anderson said in-person communication is extremely valuable.
“Over communicating is key,” he said. “I think it’s best to err on the side of over communication and transparency.”
Have a voice of the employee-base
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Along the theme of communication, Anderson (pictured right) stressed that having an individual in place for, in Ben Horowitz’s words, “management quality assurance,” is extremely important. Anderson said the individual needs to act as a voice of the employees in decision-making, ensuring that employee feedback is heard.
“This is an imperative function in the early, formative stages of building a company, and one that too many companies don't prioritize until much too late,” Anderson said.
A culture is never “done”
One reason feedback is so important, especially at a startup, is because of the threat of constant change. Making sure that employees aren’t left behind amid changes is important.
Anderson said there is no silver bullet to building a culture, just like there isn’t a secret to success for hiring a great team. Both take hard work, and both tasks are never finished, he said.
“You can’t ever look at building a culture as complete. It’s never just done,” he said. “It’s something you have to be mindful of and purposeful about every single day that you’re building a company.”
Compensation and benefits aren’t everything
With that said, if a company is looking to improve its culture, Anderson recommended constantly assessing how a company communicates with its employees and how it respects them, rather than showering them with compensation and benefits.
“In startup land, it’s become sort of all the rage to throw a lot of bright shiny objects at people and to call that a great culture. I sort of diametrically oppose that philosophy,” Anderson said, adding that he would rather feel valued, respected and heard. “Compensation and benefits are important. They’re the reason that we work. But they’re not generally what’s fundamentally most important to most people,” he said.
Do word and deed match?
Of course, Booth points out that startups need to make sure they follow through with whatever culture they say they’ll create. In Booth’s words, they need to ask themselves if “word and deed match.”
Booth said fellow Techstars Boulder 2010 alum Roundpegg, a company that helps other companies align around their culture, assists with that challenge. Roundpegg’s culture surveys help companies recognize any gaps between stated and actual culture.
Leadership sets the tone
Avoiding any such gaps starts at the top.
“Culture is set by how the leaders act,” he said. “If we say, ‘Hey we put the customer first,’ but we don’t act that way as leadership — we don’t make it easy for them to return products if they don’t like them — that sort of permeates through the company.”
Structure the company according to culture
Furthermore, leaders need to be sure that companies are structured in concert with their culture.
“We’re very, very mindful that we don’t do something organizationally that says we value one thing versus the other, or that we don’t de-prioritize something that we care deeply about,” Booth said, adding that Sphero Labs is a great example.
He said Sphero values R&D — and the ability to constantly upgrade the products it has given to customers — to a great degree. So, it created Sphero Labs, Booth said, dedicating people to ongoing product improvement.
Add people who show they belong
Hiring is an enormous part of structuring a company and of maintaining a culture. Booth said Sphero ensures they hire quality candidates by asking them to engage in “show us” exercises. Rather than having candidates merely talk about the work they’ve done, Sphero asks potential employees to bring in or demonstrate their work.
“Say somebody is a hardware engineer,” Booth said. “We want them to bring the things that they’ve worked on in the past, not tell us about them.”
He said such exercises bring out the true quality in candidates. In addition, by asking people why Sphero is a good fit for them, Booth said Sphero increases its odds of finding people who truly want to be there.
“We want to find people that are where they want to be physically, and that they’re doing what they want to do. It’s amazing in life you find people get those two things wrong,” he said. “They’re not doing what they want to do and they’re not where they want to be, so they can’t come and do the best work of their lives.”
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