How does a company do culture?

I moved to San Francisco in 2019, to work at a Fintech whose mission-driven culture drew me in. I was reading fervently about the Unbanked in the US, alternative financial solutions, community-based banking, and the history of digital payments (I recall a neat origin story in MPesa, a Kenyan cell phone based money system). This new company promised to build a system of lending in the US, to defeat Credit Cards and spark a revolution of more transparent credit building.

This innate interest and alignment with the company mission drove me to work hard for this firm. We were doing something important! We made sure to ask interviewees just why they were applying, and screened for folks who arrived with purpose.

Fast forward a couple of years, the Pandemic, the IPO, and rising federal fund rates. Profits were of utmost importance, and the mission, while not completely forgotten, at times played second fiddle.

I learned something from this experience. Despite the tempting cynical conclusion that "company missions are total BS", I knew there was some nuance to take away. A company mission is fine! It's just a bit fragile of a rallying cry to bring people together through all cycles to do their best work for a corporation.

What is certainly fragile is a top-down dictation of a new culture around "we work very hard here". I saw this a lot in the post-pandemic profit squeeze. A good culture is a reason to work hard for each other, not an instruction to do so.

Ultimately, the best kind of company culture is something authentic and honest that fosters connection across teams. And it needs cultural surface area that does not force a narrative or attempt to persuade, but instead gives a platform to the people who make the company what it is.

That might sound ambiguous, but if you pay attention to the small things at your company, morsels of a culture likely already exist! Small traditions or rituals that are distinctly your own. It could be innocuous, like a particular Slack emoji that everyone uses, or a latte art channel, or a meeting tradition of giving shout-outs to recognize good performances. Many have felt the catharsis of being "seen". An organization can benefit from that same act of noticing, and naming these morsels can provide team-wide language that establishes what your culture is!

So if you are a leader, a manager, or a curious employee passionate about the feeling of coming to work, try taking a moment to notice where you see these snippets of culture popping up.