by Josh Levine
This article is first in a series exploring the why, when, and how of managing company culture in growth organizations by Josh Levine.
Why It’s So Hard to Scale Company Culture
Sex in stairwells, absentee management, and outright racism. There’s been a spate of news recently about cultures going awry in Silicon Valley. While it’s the extreme cases here on the left coast that are making the headlines, errant cultures effect companies of all kind and size. It seems keeping culture from unraveling is a significant challenge every growth organization must learn to manage if its leaders intend to succeed in the long run.
In modestly sized organization, a limited set of individuals rely on one another to get work done, usually becoming a tight bunch in the process. Let’s call this an intimate community: a group of people where “most of the members recognize and are recognized by many of the others”. By nature and necessity when put together individuals develop relationships, and when intimate communities form they enable the knowing of the “who’s and what’s” of the organization. (Everyone knows Shelby is the code base wizard; Sanjay broke the sales records last quarter.)
Josh Levine is an educator, designer, and author, but above all, he is on a mission to help organizations design a culture advantage.