Grant Leboff: So Andy, one of the things that really struck a cord in the book, with me, because is it’s something I really believe in, and I thing sometimes it’s really difficult for people to get to get their finger on, is you talk about a really important culture an Uber culture, so just explains little bit more about that.
Andy Hanselman: Culture’s often seen as a really soft side of the business but I actually think it’s that hardest to grow and develop and our very simple definition of culture, is the way we do things around here, and it’s the way we do things deliberately, not so deliberately, consciously, unconsciously, and it’s this whole feel almost of the business, but what we see in 3D businesses is that they do clearly spell out what that culture is. So the Uber bit stands for ‘everybody understands what’s expected of them’ and the clear behaviors that we expect from our people. That the systems are built to reinforce that culture, whether that’s recruitment, the way we actually hire people… People are actually engaged empowered and enabled to actually deliver those things and they’re rewarded and recognized for doing it, so I think a great measure of culture business is what are people rewarded for around here.
Grant Leboff: It’s interesting, so I think a lot of businesses, would you say this yourself, are guilty of kind of allowing culture to evolve rather then kind of taking control and making sure they establish something positive and worth while, is that something you see a lot?
Andy Hanselman: Absolutely, in the early days the person setting up his or her business is the culture and as they grow, very often they recruit people in their own likeness so it’s similar, but as they get bigger and bigger the danger is that gets diluted which is to me why it’s about spelling it out, people often say it’s about common sense. But common sense to a fifty year old business woman isn’t necessarily the same common sense to a seventeen year old apprentice. So sometimes we have to spell out what those behaviors are that we actually want, and reaffirm them, not in a negative way, equally it’s not about putting up lots of wonderful posters, it’s got to be built into the way we do stuff.
Grant Leboff: So how does a business do that? So you’ve got an owner and it’s growing, and you know you’re starting to say we’ve got to identify this a little bit more, how does a business go about kind of articulating that to the wider staff as it were?
Andy Hanselman: I think the starting point is spelling it out in your own head if it’s your own business, what are your own core values? But the bit for me that I actually see as a key thing, is actually turning those values into real behaviors. So I will give you an example, I had a client that one of their core values was teamwork, and we said “well what should somebody living that value do?” And somebody said, we were working as a team said, “well if they were asked to help somebody they would do so”. I said, “no, no, no that’s just doing your job”, offering help without being asked is a specific behavior that would say that’s somebody living in line with our behaviors so it’s proactive behaviors that you want to get from your people, and my experience is don’t just do it at the top, make sure that the people involved in living these things, help maybe shape them and get involved in maybe doing them.
Grant Leboff: So everybody has a say in how that works?
Andy Hanselman: Yeah but it’s not designing it by committee, it’s still got to come from the leadership, the role of the leaders is to demonstrate this stuff but I think equally actually got to make sure they’re actually living it. I had one client that came to a conference that I was speaking at, and Cultural Competitive Advantage was the title, and I thought I love going into businesses getting a feel for the culture, and he said “I never felt about this culture stuff, because we haven’t got a culture at our place”, and I said “You have” and he said “no I haven’t”, I said “if I come to your business and get a fell for your business” he goes “no, nobody gives a damn at our place”. That’s your culture, and it’s the leadership that have got to create and share that if we do it, so it’s again a bit cheesy, we talk about champion the champions which is including, supporting and recognizing those that do it, but challenge the challengers and maybe dealing with those that aren’t, and not necessarily booting them it’s actually just putting your arm around them and saying “these are the behaviors we want, how can we help you live em?”
Grant Leboff: And how many behaviors do you think a company can manage, because one of the things you could list fifty couldn’t you, right clearly no-one’s going to remember all that, so what’s manageable for a business?
Andy Hanselman: I think very often people do have to many and for me you know again there’s no set rules but if there’s five or six core values it might be two or three behaviors for those to sort of reinforce what those key proactive things are that people do. I had a client of mine, one of their key behaviors that they had in everything that they did was; use good judgement.
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