Your Company Culture Is Who You Are
July 5, 2018
“Maintaining an effective company culture is so important that it, in fact, trumps even strategy.” ~ Howard Stevenson, Harvard Business School Professor
MGP is headquartered in San Francisco, but our team enjoys the perks of working as a virtual PR firm. Working virtually allows our team the freedom to balance our ‘always-on’ industry with the rest of life. Developing a corporate culture would be easy to sidestep as a virtually-based PR firm. We know, however, that without a healthy culture we’d simply be a group of individual digital nomads — not an awesome tribe and company.
Culture Starts with Great People.
Finding great people is simultaneously both the hardest and the easiest part of building a great company culture. Determining which candidates are the best fit for your company – and reciprocally – if your team and company is the best fit for a candidate – can be challenging, but equally rewarding.
Job fit and cultural fit are of equal importance. Companies need to be as concerned with cultural fit as they are with job fit, as both are significant factors in whether or not a team member will thrive in their job and achieve their true potential. Public relations can be a tough field and it isn’t for everyone. While PR professionals live and die by the media coverage they generate and thrive on challenge, the PR industry’s annual turnover rate averages about 22.1 percent. Once the right people are in place, however, it becomes much easier for a company to fire on all cylinders and hit its stride.
Surprisingly, the ‘right’ person isn’t solely about having hard workers that produce great results. In a post on Harvard Business Review, author Eric Sinoway shares a story about growing his company while simultaneously maintaining a strong and meaningful corporate culture. In his book, Howard’s Gift: Uncommon Wisdom to Inspire Your Life’s Work, Eric and his mentor and former Harvard Business School professor, Howard Stevenson went so far as to create a classification system to identify those team members that help a company’s culture and those that hurt it:
- Stars are the team members everyone loves, the people who perform well in the “right way”, i.e. the manner that supports and builds the desired company culture.
- High Potentials are those whose behavior we value. They are those who do things the right way, but whose skills need further maturation or enhancement. With training, time and support, these people are a company’s future stars.
- Zombies fail on both counts. Their behavior doesn’t align with the cultural aspirations of the company and their performance is mediocre. They are the proverbial dead wood, but their ability to inflict harm is mitigated by their lack of credibility. They don’t add much so the cultural damage they do is limited.
- Vampires are the real threat. These team members perform well, but in a manner that is at cross-purposes with desired company culture. Because their functional performance is strong, they can also acquire power and influence. Over time, they can also acquire followers in the form of Zombies whose cultural fit is also at odds with the company. Left unchecked, soon there’s a small army of Vampires and Zombies attacking the Stars, High Potentials and Leaders who are doing things the right way.
Bottom line: even high performers can have a detrimental impact on overall company performance and team morale.
The right people will support and build upon core values. At MGP we refer to ourselves as “Swans”: gliding gracefully on the water’s surface, but paddling furiously below it. Behind the scenes, we have a “roll up our sleeves mentality” and work diligently to produce results for our clients. Grace under pressure and graceful persistence form a core part of the MGP team’s DNA and our company culture.
Communication Creates Culture.
This sounds silly given the PR industry is built on communication, but even great communicators need to make an effort to connect. As a remote organization, we’re more than digital penpals. We focus on being a talented team instead of a group of individuals. Everything we accomplish, we accomplish together. A group of individuals sees themselves as being separate from each other and helping others is forced. MGP team members work together on all related PR projects and help where necessary. Everyone does a little bit of everything and even senior team members aren’t off the hook from “grunt” work.
The MGP team also use a bevy of PR communication tools that enable us to stay connected throughout the workday. Slack is our “go-to”. We utilize it for real-time messaging and account management for each client – and also utilize it with many of our clients who also value the tool. Of course, we also use Slack to share funny stories, give props and accolades for team member wins and the occasional funny meme – in that way it’s the ultimate virtual water cooler. We also meet face-to-face for MGP team offsites twice per year and the occasional happy hour or party, as well as client kickoffs, onsite meetings and conferences.
A healthy company culture is absolutely necessary for a company’s success. After all, happy people do the best work – and that’s something we and our clients can all get behind!
Mindy M. Hull
CEO
Your Company Culture Is Who You Are
July 5, 2018
“Maintaining an effective company culture is so important that it, in fact, trumps even strategy.” ~ Howard Stevenson, Harvard Business School Professor
MGP is headquartered in San Francisco, but our team enjoys the perks of working as a virtual PR firm. Working virtually allows our team the freedom to balance our ‘always-on’ industry with the rest of life. Developing a corporate culture would be easy to sidestep as a virtually-based PR firm. We know, however, that without a healthy culture we’d simply be a group of individual digital nomads — not an awesome tribe and company.
Culture Starts with Great People.
Finding great people is simultaneously both the hardest and the easiest part of building a great company culture. Determining which candidates are the best fit for your company – and reciprocally – if your team and company is the best fit for a candidate – can be challenging, but equally rewarding.
Job fit and cultural fit are of equal importance. Companies need to be as concerned with cultural fit as they are with job fit, as both are significant factors in whether or not a team member will thrive in their job and achieve their true potential. Public relations can be a tough field and it isn’t for everyone. While PR professionals live and die by the media coverage they generate and thrive on challenge, the PR industry’s annual turnover rate averages about 22.1 percent. Once the right people are in place, however, it becomes much easier for a company to fire on all cylinders and hit its stride.
Surprisingly, the ‘right’ person isn’t solely about having hard workers that produce great results. In a post on Harvard Business Review, author Eric Sinoway shares a story about growing his company while simultaneously maintaining a strong and meaningful corporate culture. In his book, Howard’s Gift: Uncommon Wisdom to Inspire Your Life’s Work, Eric and his mentor and former Harvard Business School professor, Howard Stevenson went so far as to create a classification system to identify those team members that help a company’s culture and those that hurt it:
- Stars are the team members everyone loves, the people who perform well in the “right way”, i.e. the manner that supports and builds the desired company culture.
- High Potentials are those whose behavior we value. They are those who do things the right way, but whose skills need further maturation or enhancement. With training, time and support, these people are a company’s future stars.
- Zombies fail on both counts. Their behavior doesn’t align with the cultural aspirations of the company and their performance is mediocre. They are the proverbial dead wood, but their ability to inflict harm is mitigated by their lack of credibility. They don’t add much so the cultural damage they do is limited.
- Vampires are the real threat. These team members perform well, but in a manner that is at cross-purposes with desired company culture. Because their functional performance is strong, they can also acquire power and influence. Over time, they can also acquire followers in the form of Zombies whose cultural fit is also at odds with the company. Left unchecked, soon there’s a small army of Vampires and Zombies attacking the Stars, High Potentials and Leaders who are doing things the right way.
Bottom line: even high performers can have a detrimental impact on overall company performance and team morale.
The right people will support and build upon core values. At MGP we refer to ourselves as “Swans”: gliding gracefully on the water’s surface, but paddling furiously below it. Behind the scenes, we have a “roll up our sleeves mentality” and work diligently to produce results for our clients. Grace under pressure and graceful persistence form a core part of the MGP team’s DNA and our company culture.
Communication Creates Culture.
This sounds silly given the PR industry is built on communication, but even great communicators need to make an effort to connect. As a remote organization, we’re more than digital penpals. We focus on being a talented team instead of a group of individuals. Everything we accomplish, we accomplish together. A group of individuals sees themselves as being separate from each other and helping others is forced. MGP team members work together on all related PR projects and help where necessary. Everyone does a little bit of everything and even senior team members aren’t off the hook from “grunt” work.
The MGP team also use a bevy of PR communication tools that enable us to stay connected throughout the workday. Slack is our “go-to”. We utilize it for real-time messaging and account management for each client – and also utilize it with many of our clients who also value the tool. Of course, we also use Slack to share funny stories, give props and accolades for team member wins and the occasional funny meme – in that way it’s the ultimate virtual water cooler. We also meet face-to-face for MGP team offsites twice per year and the occasional happy hour or party, as well as client kickoffs, onsite meetings and conferences.
A healthy company culture is absolutely necessary for a company’s success. After all, happy people do the best work – and that’s something we and our clients can all get behind!