$44.50
What happens when a group of people—a "company" of people, as it were—with very strong norms, doubles in size overnight?
In the first few months of this year we hired four new full-time team members, bringing us to a total of nine. That is a spree by our standards. And it has prompted us to revisit some deep questions.
Candles are culture. But I am fascinated by another dimension of that word: company culture.
Company culture is the sum of the unspoken habits, behaviors and de facto norms of people who work together. It’s not something any one individual can proclaim and decide. You will have a company culture whether or not you tend to it. The question is: Does your culture serve the organization’s purpose and its people?
Writing it on the wall is a good start, but not sufficient.
Onboarding new Keapees (our faster and cuter way to say ‘Keap employees’) tends to bring up a lot of healthy asking-why. Why do we handwrite cards to our customers every morning? Why don’t we have music playing on loudspeakers? Why do we all clean the studio at the end of every day?
Sometimes this questioning helps cement a practice we were taking for granted. Other times it tells us something wasn’t working the way we thought. Either way, we’re better for it.
A frequent theme in these conversations is how inadequately our education has prepared us to engage in a healthy collective culture.
We are not taught to be “hearty in our approbation and lavish in our praise”. We are not taught to have courageous conversations to resolve conflict with a collaborative mindset. We are not taught how to parse our feelings to understand our unmet needs. These are practices we are continuously trying to get better at here at Keap.
I think about this too with my own son. How do I give him the tools to move through the world in a way that is at once independent and cooperative—to thrive both as an individual and as a part of a community?
This might be a question for all of us.
Is there an organization where you've experienced a genuinely wonderful culture? I'd love to hear about it. Send me a reply!
Have a great weekend,
— Harry from Keap, Steward-Owner