At coffee with a friend this morning, I was asked a simple but important question. What's the best way to learn about a new leader? In this case, my friend was meeting with someone in the startup phase of a new business. No employees yet and no workplace, so not much to observe in terms of organizational norms or culture. Those have yet to be written. So her question feels really interesting to explore.
I shared with her that I would want to learn about the founder's values. What drives that individual? And what do they aspire to for organizational values? Are they the same? Is there overlap? And what do those values mean for the individual?
For example, if we value financial stability above all else, is that going to make the business cautious around innovation? Will it drive the founder to push the team harder to achieve financial stability? How will it inform their interest in risk taking and decision making?
Conversely, if integrity is a core value, how does the founder see that informing their strategic planning? Will it mean potentially turning away lucrative opportunities in favor of opportunities where there's better values alignment? Does the organization have a sufficient financial runway to operate like that? And are there ways the organization can capitalize on that integrity to boost early stage success?
The personal values a founder holds may or may not be the appropriate values for an organization to operate under. They will have a huge impact on informing the organization's culture...for better or worse. Further, the values held by the founder's starting team will be highly influential in that foundational culture, so attention at hiring, not simply to aptitude but to values and culture are so critical to starting an organization off on the right foot. We tend to focus all the attention to the business plan and the financial modeling that we can forget how important some of these "softer" areas of planning really are. When founders deprioritize culture upfront, they risk finding themselves having built a culture which may not fit them, their team, or the strategic or operational priorities they're focused on.
This holds true at the start of a new organization and continues through the lifetime of an organization. I'm sure we can all conjure up an experience we've had with values misalignment or cultural challenges in our workplaces. But the good news is, each of us has the power to influence culture in our workplaces, from whatever position we hold.
Clarity around our own values, and our ability to communicate that inside our workplace matters. One of my core values is community, so I'm always going to look to maximize the impact of the work I'm doing. Communicating that to my team is easy for me to do. At the last company I founded, teamwork was a core value. It was a nod to my own personal value as well as something that was critical to the success of the business. My personal value translated to something meaningful and impactful for my team.
Values were also a source of cultural misalignment. An individual who valued personal success above teamwork created a cultural catastrophe when they refused to collaborate, refused to teach, refused to learn. Ultimately, and despite that person's deep skill, they weren't the right fit for the company because they hurt feelings, damaged trust, and slowed down projects. It was a hard lesson to learn that nobody on the team can be exempt from operating under the organization's values.
And when it works, it really works. Trust deepens, innovation thrives, team members appreciate one another, both personally and professionally. People are willing to go out of their way to advance projects and solve challenges. They assume good intent of one another and are generally willing to extend some grace when challenges pop up.
I can't speak enough about how important culture is and how foundational values are to developing and maintaining a healthy organizational culture. If this topic moves you, reach out and let's talk.
As for my friend, I'm eager to hear how her conversation goes. She may be the first person to be asking this founder about his values and they way he wants them informing his new venture. And what a great opportunity her curiosity introduces for this founder to think about the softer yet critical aspects of his new business.