Company culture (like porn?) can be hard to define. You know it when you see it, but that still makes it tricky to codify into policies. Which you need to be able to do to ensure you’re all doing the right things and discouraging the wrong ones… right?
It’s also difficult to craft culture in advance. Questions, quirks, requests and problems will arise over time as your company matures and your team grows. And none of them will have occurred to you when you were initially considering what kind of company you wanted to build. (A lot like exposing software to user testing...)
We also define and build culture based on what we already know and like. How we want to be treated, things previous teams have enjoyed doing, and avoiding problems seen at other workplaces.
But there are also broader influences, such as your personality or where you live. And we don’t always remember that culture needs to reflect the whole team over time, not just the founders, for example.
Many companies are getting better at recognizing that different people work differently, and encouraging them to do what they need to do to be most productive and happy at work. But we still have a long way to go before we have equally developed ideas about work culture.
One size does not fit all, and honestly, we’re trying too hard.
There’s a general culture trend among progressive startups and tech companies to want the team to not just be high-functioning co-workers, but to be a family, more or less. People should really care about each other. Not just the work, but our mutual satisfaction and well-being.
This tends to include the idea what we should want to spend plenty of time in each other’s company. Not just during the workday, but doing team building and socializing outside of work hours.
Some people welcome this approach. It’s nice to have folks check in on you, serve as sounding boards or assist in working through issues. And who doesn’t like to unwind over a pint with people who have that deep understanding of team in-jokes and anecdotes?
Except that for some people this is bloody awful. (And let’s face it, families can be pretty dysfunctional…)
Even within North American tech culture, not everyone wants to be friends, let alone family with their co-workers. They resent (reasonably) any expectation of giving up personal time (with their actual friends and family) to socialize. But there are often unspoken social and performance-related penalties for those who don’t participate willingly.
Or some people may actually want to participate more socially, but other demands on their time, social anxiety, or other issues make it infeasible.
As we build teams, we need to be cognizant of these variations and more in those we hire. But getting a feel for cultural preferences isn’t easy to discern in interviews. People want to make a good impression, so they’re unlikely to tell you straight out that they have no interest in a team outing to an escape room.
Plus, we already come to hiring and team building with ingrained ideas and biases that take concerted and sustained effort to surmount. Our socio-cultural expectations of team members just add another layer.
Even once people are on the team, they may not feel comfortable directly expressing a desire to keep work relationships and work time restricted to… work. Patterns like always having “an appointment” during team-building afternoons don’t go unnoticed forever, though.
If your team is global, these cultural expectations and variances are bound to be front and centre, because people in other countries often work differently. And really, many other places have a healthier work/social/family balance than the North American focus on “crushing it.”
Time zones can also bring these issues into focus. Basically, with global teams (especially all-remote ones), one region will always get screwed. You can try rotating meeting times and such, but there is never an ideal time for an all-hands meeting when your team is internationally scattered.
If the meeting starts by spending half an hour checking in on how everyone’s doing and making social chit chat, you’re going to piss off whomever is delaying bedtime to be on a call at 11 p.m. But if you have team members who have no interest in the social time, they’re going to feel like their time is being wasted even if it’s 2 p.m.
On our team we’ve found that as we evolve, more of our meeting and project work happens asynchronously, so there’s less reason for a monthly all-hands meeting. If you include the social aspect, which, for some people, is an imposition, it begs the question of whether there is an actual benefit to everyone having to be there.
We still meet up somewhere in the world at least once a year, because that is important from time to time. But in our day-to-day culture, mandatory online socializing and facetime isn’t our thing anymore. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
The important thing is that people feel informed, productive and as connected as they want to be. Not that we’re checking off boxes on some arbitrary list of “good cultural practices.”
Ultimately, no work team is ever going to be family. For people who share your sense of humour or social interests, there are friends. Family isn’t responsible for your livelihood and can’t fire you.
Any relationship has power dynamics, but the ones in families aren’t the same as the ones in companies.
Ultimately that’s what it comes down to: the balance of power. Who has it, how is it distributed, and do team members feel like they share it and can use it for their benefit, or that of their team or project?
Balancing power in a way that enables people to feel as connected or autonomous as they want to be, as heard or as influential as they want to be – that’s how you build a great culture.
No late-night video chats, potluck lunches, or bowling outings required.
M-Theory is an opinion column by Melanie Baker. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Communitech. Melle can be reached @melle or me@melle.ca.
