CULTURE KILLERS: Building for Today
Building for Today
It’s easy to make decisions that work today when you only have a few employees, customers or users. But to succeed, startups need to build to scale. Starting from the beginning. This latest edition of CULTURE KILLERS discusses how the decisions you make today across strategy, operations and people can accelerate your growth…or damage your culture in ways that can bring your business to a halt.
Anyone who has ever experienced rapid growth knows that it can be hard to balance working efficiently today and preparing to scale. What works for a team of 5 will rarely work for a team of 15, and will almost never work for a team of 50. And the reverse is true as well.
Part of the fun of life at an early stage venture is being along for the ride as things, and cultures, grow and evolve. But as Cowgirls, we consistently see how decisions made early on can either facilitate that growth….or create Culture Killers that stop momentum in its tracks. Here are some common examples where Building for Today erodes culture in the future.
Inflated titles. It is hard to get great talent in the early days, but do not fall into the trap of giving early employees the wrong titles. This results in situations where the employees you bring in down the line report into bosses that have less experience, the wrong qualifications, and a lot of entitlement. Resentment and turnover go up and morale goes down. Top candidates turn down jobs - who wants to be more qualified than their boss? - and existing employees get spooked.
Do not inflate titles. Instead, hire at mid-level ranks, let the highest performers earn the promotions, and demonstrate that expectations are consistently high. If someone who deserves a big title joins, hold them to the high standards their title would suggest they can reach.
Unequal pay and equity. Most early employees end up with more equity, but make every effort to compensate people consistently from the start. Failing to do so effectively plants landmines all over your company. Pay and equity will not be equal, and employees will eventually find out. Resentment and politics skyrocket. Productivity plummets.
Establish pay bands and standard equity ranges early. Be transparent. Many states already have pay transparency laws and others are following quickly. Is your company ready to make pay transparent? If not, you have some work to do here.
Encouraging heroes. We see situations all the time where one person knows everything, can fix everything, and is praised for it. That is great when they are also focused on building resilience and knowledge sharing. Yet, too often, these ‘superheroes’ are retaining their knowledge and destroying company culture. They make it impossible for others to ever be fully up to speed, making it impossible for people to work autonomously or fully contribute. Team morale drops. The heroes get special treatment.
Do not engage in hero worship. Set the expectation that every single person is accountable for building to scale, from the early days.
Sloppy operations. We wrote about a similar topic previously, but it is worth reiterating here. Details matter. Sloppy operations kill culture. They make it harder for people to do their jobs, create needless bureaucracy and red tape, and force employees to spend time on administrative work that could be easily streamlined. And, they set a culture of low expectations. All of which hurts execution.
If there was a roadmap with day by day instructions for how to effectively scale fast, everyone would use it. Sadly, that does not exist. Scaling is not easy and there are many judgment calls along the way.
But, keeping in mind big picture goals will help. Focus on quality and equality. Build resilience. Make sure that there is not a fatal flaw in what you are doing today that will cause it to break if you add more team members or customers. Keeping these in mind will help you prevent letting Building for Today become an ongoing Culture Killer.
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.
