On a surface level, culture describes “how things are done around here”, but at the heart of culture are the values that shape how people act and interact with each other. In a small group of friends, culture naturally begins to form based on the deep understanding of who these friends are, what they care about, and how they engage with each other. The culture of an early stage startup, therefore, naturally forms around the character of the founder. As that startup begins to scale beyond a small group of friends, and as the founder becomes CEO of a growing enterprise, what needs to happen to establish and maintain a healthy culture?
In this article, as I have in previous articles in this series, I consider what “culture” looks like and how it is formed for the company in three different phases: a) while the business is still a startup searching for a profitable, scalable business model, b) when the business finds that business model and begins to scale, and c) beyond that transition as the business grows and matures.
I also use two examples – a large company (The Williams Companies) and a smaller company (Hope Builders) – to see what this process looks like in practice.