Establish Culture
This is Part 3/4 of my leadership series speech that I have given to companies, conferences and teams around the country. The links to the other parts are list below.
Part 1: What is your Superpower?
Part 2: Understand and Fill Your Weaknesses
Part 3: Establish Culture
Part 4: Earn and Command Respect
The third primary aspect of strong leadership pertains to culture. I would not have had culture in my top components of great leadership. 10 years ago, I didn’t vaguely understand the importance of culture. I would tell you that if I were starting a company today – the first action item on my list would be to establish culture. Culture is this incredible force multiplier that changes the way people work.
I do a lot of boardwork with a HiFi wireless speaker company called Sonos. John MacFarlane is the CEO of Sonos and after selling his first company, Software.com, he spent the next 10 years building Sonos and their team.
John is a demon about culture. It’s in their hiring, it’s in their review process, it’s in everything they do as a company. Culture is not a bunch of slogans written on the wall but when you talk to someone at Sonos you see the culture in their people, their purpose and their goals that everyone is aiming to achieve.
Establishing a common culture fundamentally changes the way employees get things done. Thus my view, if I were thinking things through in a structured way, I would start first with culture. Lastly, as a company grows it becomes more challenging to maintain culture.
Sonos is passing 1,000 employees. If all things go well, this number can turn into 90,000 employees like at Microsoft which by the way has absorbed many cultures along the way, Nokia being the most recent and predominant example. These large companies, like Microsoft, can morph into completely different workplaces which can be difficult to manage if you are not stringent about establishing and maintaining culture.
Thus when building a company or team think about how culture plays into how you think about leadership and growth.
Part 1: What is your Superpower?
Part 2: Understand and Fill Your Weaknesses
Part 3: Establish Culture
Part 4: Earn and Command Respect