CULTURE KILLERS: “Small” Things Do Not Matter
“Small” Things Do Not Matter
Everything matters when building a business. When people do not think ‘small’ things matter, they will act like nothing matters. This edition of CULTURE KILLERS offers a parable of how letting small things slip will lead to larger issues.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while we pondered weak and weary, there was a company that gave employees a smorgasbord of technology enablers. On the bright side, everyone learned a whole slew of new tools - great professional development! They used multiple task trackers, multiple document repositories, multiple CRMs, Google Suite, Office Suite, and on and on. While there was some level of directional guidance, standards on how to use the tech stack were not enforced and employees could effectively choose to work wherever they most wanted to. At first, everyone liked it because they got to use the tools that they personally liked to use.
The obvious downside of so many tools is that operations and organization become harder. Version control was a nightmare. It was difficult to find files / action items / documentation. Some people only used Slack and signed out of email entirely, other people were locked out of Slack and didn’t care because they preferred email.
Eventually, almost everyone started asking for more consistency…but as you might expect, people generally wanted everyone else to start using their own preferred tool. Rather than insist on a common way of working, the leadership team let it slide on the basis of ‘it doesn’t matter’.
The effects on culture and the ramifications on the business were profound:
Accountability went down. Entitlement went up.
Missed an important Slack? Oh, sorry, I am more of an email sort of person. Can’t find that document you asked me to pull together? That’s because I must have put it in that other repository that I use. (Translation, I was working on my side hustle yesterday and didn’t get to this…we used to call this one ‘the dog ate my homework’.)
Leadership credibility cratered. The team lost faith that leaders understood how to run a business, how to manage a budget or set any level of standards.
Frustration and resentment went up. Employees got tired of systems and tools that did not make their lives easier, and also could not understand why their colleagues were dead set on using different (and, in their minds, inferior) tools.
Work product declined across the board. With no accountability and no common standards, the mindset of “it doesn’t matter” came to be applied across every aspect of the company.
Don’t fall into the culture killing trap and say “it does not matter.” To build a Culture that Works, Everything Matters. Pay attention to the foundation that you are laying because it sets the tone and will ultimately dictate how your company and your team perform. Today and in the future.
More about the CULTURE KILLER Series
Every founder wants their company to be known for its culture. Every employee wants to work in a place that they love. To succeed, every startup needs a Culture that Works.
Culture is so much more than a list of random perks. It results from how a company implements its strategy across its organization, how it runs its business every day, and how it manages its people. Culture is hard to build and fragile once established.
Around every corner is a CULTURE KILLER that can derail you and your company. In this series, we’re sharing some of our favorite examples and discussing the bigger underlying issues that are easily missed but must be fixed.
