“You’re going to have a culture anyway. You can and should influence it – so why not build the one you love?” Those are the words of Dharmesh Shah, the co-founder of of HubSpot.
Like many businesses, culture wasn’t always something that they focused on: “In the early years of HubSpot we didn’t talk about culture at all,” he explains on Inc.com but then he started working intensely on building and developing the culture of his business that focuses on customer delight, and it clearly seems to be working – the inbound marketing company has grown from a $2 million business in 2008 to over $50 million in 2012!
“A couple of years ago I started a simple document that talked a bit about culture, describing the kinds of people that seemed to do well at HubSpot and that we wanted to recruit. Then I started getting feedback from the team that it wasn’t going far enough: It described the who but didn’t address any of the how or why.”
Part of this iinvolved developing 10 tenets that shape and drive the culture of the business and they are a brilliant example of 3D Thinking. In fact are our latest example in our search for 100 Examples and in particular, Creating An UBER Culture which is Characteristic #5 of The 7 Characteristics of 3D Businesses!
The key ingredients of an UBER culture are:
- Everyone Understands what’s expected of them and behaves accordingly and consistently as a result
- Systems and processes are Built to reinforce and support those values and behaviours
- People are Engaged, Empowered and Encouraged to deliver them
- People are Rewarded and Recognised for doing it!
The Slideshare presentation below highlights just some of the systems and processes that are Built into the way they do business which include…
- Sharing (almost) everything! they protect information only that they are legally required to do and when it’s not completely theirs to share (salary details for example)….
- An inhouse Wiki site that shares financial information, and details of Board and Senior Management meetings…
- A seat shuffle every 3 months (which they say, reflects the fact that change is constant)…
- Unlimited free books for personal development…
- Unlimited free meals to get to know your colleagues…
- A 3 word policy on just about everything such as social media policy, sick day policy, travel policy, working from home policy, ‘buy a round of drinks at an event policy’ and that 3 word policy is..
……………….’USE GOOD JUDGEMENT’!
For more insight into what they do, and how they do it, have a look at this Slideshare presentation they have produced to explain it all…….
- Have you established the preferred behaviours you want from your people?
- Are your systems and processes Built to support these behaviours?
- Do you Recognise and Reward those who consistently display them?
If the answer is ‘no’ to these questions, then there’s a fair chance that you’ve got some work to do! A starting point might be to download our Free eBook Creating An UBER Culture which expands on the key elements of UBER culture, and crucially helps you see how you measure up – The answers you get might not be pleasant, but at least you could start doing something about establishing and reinforcing your culture you want!
