How to build a great culture, from the troops (Part 1)

One of my favorite things to hear is that my past companies (Spunlogic and Engauge) had great cultures*. It’s not something you can really claim yourself. It’s like saying, “I’m super funny.” You really need someone else to tell you that kind of thing.

I’m working hard to make Dragon Army a place that people say that about. I’ve done a better job of clearly defining and communicating our values (team first, think positively, have fun), which I did not do at either Spunlogic or Engauge. But I started to realize recently that maybe I don’t know exactly what it was that made those two companies a place that people loved to work.

So I went to the source. I asked several past Spunlogicians and Engaugers what it was that they liked (or disliked) about our culture. What I’m going to do is post a few of those responses over the next couple of days, keeping the author of each response anonymous. It’s helped me learn some things about what it takes to make a great culture, and I hope it helps you as well:

Response 1

I have worked for many companies throughout the years and I have found culture starts from the top and works it’s way down. The culture is you. It’s who you hired and who we hired. It is about our morals, our beliefs, and our priorities and how we inject all this into our people.

A perfect example of how this culture can be poisoned by one bad senior hire, I look back to one of the companies in my past (which will remain nameless). It was an amazing company. I worked with the smartest, most hard working people in Atlanta. We collaborated, we worked long hours, and we supported each other’s successes. And then this one guy was hired and he brought suspicion and mistrust. That was the beginning of the end. The joy went away.

My suggestion is for you to reflect upon what is important to you and how you looked for these elements in others. It is in your own heart; you will find the key to a good culture.

Response 2

I can speak with some level of authority on this but I feel like the most consistent things I found/ looked for (above and beyond skills) among Spunnies and Engaugers was humility and self-awareness and a really solid EQ – these kind of traits and characteristics permit you to easily build community, make mistakes yet still grow, and nurture a culture that sees and feels beyond a bottom line and an employment brand.

More to come…

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* I am not so naive to think that there aren’t people that did not enjoy their time at Spunlogic or Engauge. It would have been an interesting exercise to seek those people out and ask them what they did not like about those cultures. But most likely, they wouldn’t have returned my emails anyway ;)