“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” — Peter Drucker, the famed management guru
“Your culture is your brand.” — Tony Hsieh, Founder & CEO of Zappos
CEOs speak with me about culture a lot.
Often, it's to complain about it. They want their culture to be “better”, “stronger”, “high-performing”.
Individual contributors (ICs) also often feel that company culture falls short. When we were mainly in offices, culture meant foosball tables and posters with values statements that were not truly lived.
What is clear is that, for both leaders and ICs, culture falls short in most companies.
I think culture is a lot simpler than most people realize. Culture is simply what we do consistently. It is who we are.
Brian Chesky, founder and CEO of Airbnb says that “culture is simply a shared way of doing something with a passion.”
He is missing a word in his statement. And that word is what creates cultural bonds. That word is “hard”.
Restating Brian: “Culture is simply a shared way of doing something hard with a passion.”
What CrossFit taught me about culture
I went to my first CrossFit class in 2018. I was your typical 40-something Dad. Not in shape. Not out of shape. I got pummeled. But I was hooked. I did CrossFit for 6 years, and it transformed my life.
Some of my best friendships were made in CrossFit class. What was it about this experience that created bonds?
We were doing something hard together.
We suffered together
We felt like we won together
This is what creates true bonds. The feeling of doing something hard together. And the feeling of winning is what keeps you going.
Winning is energy
When I had Tobi Lutke, co-founder and CEO of Shopify, on my podcast, I asked him how he was still going. Over two decades and still as hungry as ever. What made this possible?
Tobi believes that the exhaustion and psychological pain of the startup journey are directly counteracted by success.
He told me: “You know what really, really matters is winning". Winning is the ultimate fuel for both a founder and a company. "Culture comes from winning together and celebrating it".
Do hard things together and win
As simple as it sounds, this is the recipe for building a great culture: Do hard things together and win. Let’s break it down:
Hard things: This sounds too simple to be worth looking at. But think about how we design jobs. So many ICs do things that they don’t find challenging. Things that don’t inspire them.
Are you deliberately challenging your people? Are you stretching them? Are you giving your hardest problems to your highest-potential people?
In too many companies, the founder is overloaded while people underneath want more challenge and responsibility. Push the challenge down and help your people grow.
Together: This is controversial. I think the best form of “together” is in person. Nothing beats actual IRL interaction. Remote is efficient. Commuting is, rationally, a waste of time. But… in-person teamwork can’t be replaced, in my opinion.
When Kaz Nejatian took over as CEO of Opendoor, his first move was to mandate that every team member work in the office. This is why: to build culture and win together.
Win: Since 90% of startups fail, it's fair to say that almost everyone misses this piece. Winning is key. You need to be uncompromising here. The way to do that is to remove tolerations.
Tolerations create friction. Friction slows you down. The winners in any category are the fastest. Your job as CEO is find and remove friction every day. Do this, and you will win.
Tolerations show up in many forms:
A leader who used to be great but no longer is
Taking too long to respond to customers
Being in meetings or doing activities that drain your energy
The list is, frankly, endless.
Tolerations aren’t always obvious either. Your culture isn't tested when you fire a low performer, it's tested when you let go of a high performer who's poisoning trust. I broke this down on LinkedIn recently.
Join the conversation and tell me where you've drawn that line:
I ask my CEOs to list all their tolerations every 3 months, rank them by impact, then start removing them.
This creates momentum. It gives you energy. It sets you up to win.
This is the formula for building a high-performance culture in your company: Do hard things together and win.
The path to get there lies in removing everything that you are tolerating. As author Jim Collins said: “Good is the enemy of great.”
At Limitless, our group of founders is designing their roles, companies, and lives with intention. They are focused on removing tolerations and anything that is getting in the way of winning. Winning in their personal lives and winning with their companies.
If this resonates, I invite you to book a Founder Alignment Call. This isn't a sales pitch. It's thirty minutes to honestly look at where your energy is and how we can increase it.
— Mark
P.S. Next week I'm deep diving tolerations, the single highest-leverage habit inside Limitless, and giving away the actual tolerations list used to audit your business and your life. Free. In your inbox next Tuesday.