The Formula for Scaling an Award-Winning Culture
Explicit content warning
01/14/20 • 44 min
In less than a year, 15Five has rapidly scaled up from about 70 employees to over 200. Now many people might assume that the company culture that we strive to nurture has suffered as a result. However, we’re happy to say that our culture is now stronger than it has ever been (and we know this because 15Five is ranked as the #3 best place to work in the country on Glassdoor.) So today we’re talking about how to scale culture while simultaneously undergoing hyper-growth.
We share what we have learned as leaders of a company during this period of rapid growth. We discovered that being attuned to what your people are feeling and thinking is a key part of supporting them during this process. To that end, we discuss how we listen to our people and use their feedback in constructive ways.
While there were a number of things we had in place prior to growing that helped create a strong culture, we also made many changes in the past year. We chat about what those were, such as revamping our onboarding process, to make it successful. Additionally, focusing on honesty, gratitude, and vulnerability was instrumental in this process. We discuss how you can make this part of your successful expansion as well.
How can you uncover the true values and purpose of your organization so that you could scale up while maintaining culture? Share in the comments!
In this episode- How to know if your company has a strong and supportive culture
- Ways that you can best listen and respond to your people through feedback loops
- What happens when you create high levels of trust and vulnerability so that truth can flow more easily through your organization
- What the Best-Self Kickoff is and how you can use it tos set expectations and prepare your employees for the greatest professional experience of their lives
- Ways to maintain a cohesive leadership team as the fortunes of business ebbs and flows
- Universal principles that any company can implement to create a thriving culture
“Fundamentally, as a leader, if you want to scale your culture, you need to get good at listening. You need to be attuned to the human beings inside your organization.” [2:29]
“You don’t succeed in business by staying still. You need to engage. You need to hear things that are happening and then be able to make quick decisions and then act upon them.” [6:07]
“Respect people. Respect that they showed up. Respect and feel honored that they’re interested in working here. Respect their journey even if they’re not a good fit for this role. Respect them.” [27:18]
“Regardless of whether you’re in hyper-growth now or will be in the future, you can never start too early in creating that strong center of gravity of the culture.” [37:19]
LinksCNBC: GlassDoor’s 2020 Best Places To Work
Practices for a Positive Workplace
Center for Positive Organizations
In less than a year, 15Five has rapidly scaled up from about 70 employees to over 200. Now many people might assume that the company culture that we strive to nurture has suffered as a result. However, we’re happy to say that our culture is now stronger than it has ever been (and we know this because 15Five is ranked as the #3 best place to work in the country on Glassdoor.) So today we’re talking about how to scale culture while simultaneously undergoing hyper-growth.
We share what we have learned as leaders of a company during this period of rapid growth. We discovered that being attuned to what your people are feeling and thinking is a key part of supporting them during this process. To that end, we discuss how we listen to our people and use their feedback in constructive ways.
While there were a number of things we had in place prior to growing that helped create a strong culture, we also made many changes in the past year. We chat about what those were, such as revamping our onboarding process, to make it successful. Additionally, focusing on honesty, gratitude, and vulnerability was instrumental in this process. We discuss how you can make this part of your successful expansion as well.
How can you uncover the true values and purpose of your organization so that you could scale up while maintaining culture? Share in the comments!
In this episode- How to know if your company has a strong and supportive culture
- Ways that you can best listen and respond to your people through feedback loops
- What happens when you create high levels of trust and vulnerability so that truth can flow more easily through your organization
- What the Best-Self Kickoff is and how you can use it tos set expectations and prepare your employees for the greatest professional experience of their lives
- Ways to maintain a cohesive leadership team as the fortunes of business ebbs and flows
- Universal principles that any company can implement to create a thriving culture
“Fundamentally, as a leader, if you want to scale your culture, you need to get good at listening. You need to be attuned to the human beings inside your organization.” [2:29]
“You don’t succeed in business by staying still. You need to engage. You need to hear things that are happening and then be able to make quick decisions and then act upon them.” [6:07]
“Respect people. Respect that they showed up. Respect and feel honored that they’re interested in working here. Respect their journey even if they’re not a good fit for this role. Respect them.” [27:18]
“Regardless of whether you’re in hyper-growth now or will be in the future, you can never start too early in creating that strong center of gravity of the culture.” [37:19]
LinksCNBC: GlassDoor’s 2020 Best Places To Work
Practices for a Positive Workplace
Center for Positive Organizations
Previous Episode
Best-Self Management Returns January 14th
David and Shane tease a little bit of what's to come when Season 3 of Best-Self Management returns on January 14th. This upcoming season will feature David and Shane going deeper on the pillars of building an incredible culture, plus more incredible expert interviews, techniques, and mindset shifts to help transform your company's culture and drive incredible results.
Best-Self Management podcast where we explore the brave new world of bringing your whole self to work. Best-Self Management proposes that if leaders build cultures and institute practices that support people in being and becoming their Best Selves, then high performance and uncommon loyalty is the result.
Co-hosts, David Hassell and Shane Metcalf, regularly discuss the uniquely healthy and productive cofounder relationship they’ve built at 15Five over the last 7 years. They also interview academics, business leaders, and coaches, who are revolutionizing our understanding of human performance and what it takes to build a thriving culture that celebrates every employee and guides them towards greatness.
LinksNext Episode
Creating a Powerful Shared Context for your Team
We’re constantly trying to answer the question of how to do the extraordinary in the workplace by building a culture that people love and thrive in while achieving extraordinary business performance. That’s how we’ve strived to build our own organization.
Previously, we went over five important elements of Best-Self management. Today, we’re helping you conceptualize the methodology by presenting three key pillars to help you run a successful company:
- Create a Powerful Shared Context
- Support People In Being & Becoming Their Best-Selves
- Cultivate Relational Self-Mastery
Once you understand and make a commitment to these three pillars, you can implement practices that contribute to a healthy work culture, such as positivity, psychological safety, and growth mindset.
This all begins with creating a powerful shared context. This will lead to a sense of meaning within your organization. The context of your company is more than its mission. It is where the work culture is created and from where its creativity and purpose flows.
For example, take a company like Enron. Their shared context was to defy regulations, lie, cheat, and steal their way to the top. And what happened? Thousands of employees lost their entire retirement.Then look at a company like Patagonia. Yvonne Chouinard recently refreshed their WHY to save Planet Earth. The shared context of every employee is “we save the planet”.
The context is akin to headwaters (where the river starts). If the water is polluted from the source, that will flow all the way downstream polluting everything along the way.
Next comes supporting your people to become their best selves. Leaders and managers can inspire the key practices of strengths discovery and regular self-reflection. By helping your people achieve their full potential, your whole organization can’t help but become stronger overall.
Finally, cultivating relational mastery will help make the other two pillars possible. Many problems within most organizations stem from relational friction between people. By consciously teaching and supporting healthy and high-order interactions, people will be transparent and hold others accountable in more effective and less toxic ways.
Beyond simply making a profit, is there a higher shared context in which your organization exists? Let’s talk about it in the comments on the episode page!
In this episode:
- What happens when you create a powerful shared context within your organization
- Why it is critical to support each person in your company in becoming their best selves
- Preventing relational friction by cultivating healthy relationship skills
- The incredible role of any business to provide meaning in people’s lives and society
- How to create powerful company values that align with your personal values
Quotes
“Don’t just practice performance management because performance is a byproduct. If you instead support people in becoming their best selves, you’re going to get performance.” [2:21]
“When you really start to realize that organizations are simply a collection of individuals, to realize an organization’s full potential, you need to realize the full potential of every individual within it.” [6:24]
“Business has a unique opportunity, perhaps unprecedented, to provide meaning. I think we really need it. If we’re going to blossom in the 21st Century rather than decay, we need people living their purpose.” [11:30]
“Values can be really powerful or they can be watered down or non-existent. Choose the first one. Make your values come alive.” [25:51]
Links
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