Creating a Company Culture that enables Growth

Since the times of birth for the startup culture and some of the great success stories of tech startups, the money that it attracted and the pace at which growth happened, every business has tried to adopt this startup culture. I remember around the 2015s and further, I have worked with large corporates who wanted to bring the startup culture within them. But, does a startup culture actually support growth? is it just lot of fun and if startups have succeeded, it is not because of this glamorous show of this funky culture but the actual internally set processes and policies that has worked for them?

There is no right answer to that but we would all agree, we have heard many stories of startups failing due to its lack of right culture within the team than the stories of successes.

So today, decided to touch upon some key learnings that I have gained through my 2 plus decades of working in the startup ecosystem, both Indian and global. Most of these lessons, I have learnt the hard way myself, not only have I been an inclusive mentor to startup founders for their execution support but I have also been an entrepreneur myself for a startup that went to great heights and came crashing down by its nose. So, each of these points that I am mentioning here is a valuable take-away for you coming through a lot of heart burn, years of deep understanding and thousands of hours of mentoring many.

1. Establish a clear purpose – I understand you have the mission of the company with you but how often do you even read it yourself let alone letting the team adopt it in their working styles. If your team aligns with your “WHY” with their personal beliefs, they will do what it takes to take your company forward. So build a strong purpose driven culture with your teams.
2. Recognise values not just achievements – I totally get it that sales targets met must be celebrated, tangible outcomes must be rewarded but so does the recognition of those who stand by the values of the company as well. Having a reward system to those within the team who have stuck their efforts with a clear focus on the company culture and values enables the team to deliver more.
3. Focus on growth – As founders / leaders of the company, it is so important that growth is measured, growth is visibly achieved for the team to see stability, a future and clarity in their own career growth within the organisation. You cannot have people fearing lay-offs and expecting them to deliver great results. If this needs an external mentor or a leader, so be it but the focus should always be growth.
4. Innovate at all times – Innovation is always the heart of a startup. Innovation has enabled faster growth. Empower the people within your company to challenge the status quo and come up with solutions that are easier, faster to solve problems. Create an environment that encourages innovation in thinking, innovation is problem solving and see the magic unfold.
5. Embrace failures in the journey – No journey is a straight line to success. It is always a lot of highs and many more lows. Failures will be a part of your startup journey. Let the culture embrace failures, learn to pick the lessons through it all and keep moving forward. Your people need to believe that one slip will not become their biggest mistake. The lack of fear of failing is what encourages innovation within a company.
6. Cultivate a culture of trust – Building a culture where everyone trusts each other enough to be able to speak their minds out, this is so important for the success of a company and having a productive team with a vision. Taking feedbacks from each other, implementing changes helps build this trust within teams.
7. Let the line of sight be happy customers – In the end, your customers are the reason that you have a business in place. It is very important that you open conversations with your customers, understand their needs in this fast changing world and keep delivering the best to them. Taking testimonies and encouraging customers to give feedback as a culture is very important to having happy customers.
8. Inclusion decision making within teams – People bring new perspectives, teams together can break mountains down to create a path that a leader would not even think of, but to do so, you will have to create a space for the team to see themselves as a part of the decision making. Enabling an inclusive culture within a company opens numerous doors of growth and problem solving but to make this happen, it all starts with the founding team’s maturity and understanding about this.
9. Keep aligning the direction – Growth comes through outcomes of plans executed. If the plans being put have not been thought out through business intelligence that comes from various inputs. Inputs from customer feedback, team suggestions, market analysis and trends and your vision for the company, then there is a very high chance that you would be growing horizontally instead of a vertical growth. Spreading yourself thin. Align your plans through informed decisions and bring outcomes that takes you to your desired milestones.
10. Clear communication between founders – In growing startups / companies, the founding team needs to accept the fact that they are also evolving, changing as leaders, as founders and as visionaries. Accepting these changes, communicating the same amongst each other and finding their strengths to keep investing their best versions for the organisation is the key.

It has been really long that I have shared business lessons accumulated through my experience but I hope this read helps you to some extent to understand how important a culture plays to enable your growth. I have started conducting day long programs to startups, companies for the management and the leadership teams with a process of follow-up sessions to evaluate the outcomes of the learnings and as I do this, it is even more clearer to me of how big a gap that exists in our ecosystem when it comes to understanding and investing in creating values and cultures within a firm.

Do leave comments with your thoughts and if you think you want to have a deeper conversation with me on this topic, we can surely do that over a zoom or a coffee soon.