How to build a winning startup culture

My inspiration for this post comes from my entrepreneurial journey and experience. Building a strong culture takes vision, continuous assessment and deliberate action by the leaders of the company, but the bulk of culture is built by the team. In this post, I have distilled five key steps that founders can take to set their teams on the path to cultural greatness.

Step 1: Define a mission that is authentically you (the founder).
As a founder, distilling your vision into a mission that can be clearly articulated to your employees is one of the greatest contributions you will make to your company’s culture. Your mission will not only serve as a guiding light to your team, inspiring them in the most challenging times, but it will influence critical decisions along the journey, supporting sound judgement and helping the team understand how to prioritize their efforts.

Don’t take this step lightly, and don’t settle on something that sounds good but is not authentically you. As the leader of your organization, you are the embodiment of the mission, and your team will expect you to act in ways that align with your vision at all times, so make sure this statement is something you want to live and breathe every day.

Step 2: Align with your leadership team on core values.
Much like your mission, your core values need to be authentic to your leadership team, and you should be willing to uphold them at all costs. What does “all costs” mean? It means you should be willing to terminate an employee, or refrain from hiring one, because they do not embody your core values. Sound harsh?

If your mission provides inspiration and focus for your team, your core values explain what you care about and how you will act — as a team — on your journey to success. If your core values accurately reflect the beliefs and behaviors that are most important to your team, then consider the negative impact that just one employee who disregards your values can have on your culture. A team member in an authority position who doesn’t uphold your core values can wreak havoc on an organization.

Step 3: Collect feedback and get buy-in.
I can’t emphasize enough how critical this step is to the success of building your culture. As a founder, your responsibility is to paint the picture and set things in motion, but it is the team that will ultimately build an authentic and unshakeable culture. If the team genuinely feels invested in the mission and core values and empowered to influence decisions and make individual contributions to the culture, magic will happen.

The key to success in this step is to host open discussions designed to collect feedback and solicit ideas from the team on how to carry out your mission and live your values every day. Culture is the fabric of your entire organization, not the responsibility of a single department or an assigned group of people. Everyone needs to be bought in, and everyone needs to understand how they can contribute, both individually and as a team.

Step 4: Let the team run with it.
At this point, you have delivered a clear mission, aligned on core values, incorporated feedback, and received buy-in from your team. Now it’s time to shift from the driver’s seat to a supportive role. Stepping back can be challenging at first, but seeing what the team does with their newly defined mission and values is the most rewarding aspect of cultural development. Support as many ideas as possible, let the team experiment, and make it clear they are empowered to drive their ideas ahead. Most importantly, be patient and communicate that the expectation is momentum in a positive direction, not instant change.

Step 5: Establish KPIs and measure results.
I find this to be a best way to come up with KPIs.

There are plenty of options when it comes to tools for measuring these metrics.

Summary:
There are hundreds of decisions a week that will impact your culture and your business, and each of the five steps above could be the subject of many posts that go deep in one particular area of focus. However, the five steps above will help you lay the foundation for a company culture that is authentic to your vision, unique to your team, and unshakeable as you move forward on your journey to success.