Home is the New Enterprise

A strong business culture will be even more important in the post-pandemic, distributed-workforce world

Part II

Culture is the lifeblood of every business.

A strong, vibrant culture is more important than a great product; more valuable than a high-performing sales team; more necessary than a perfect market fit. Culture truly does eat strategy for breakfast.

Why is this?

It is because businesses with strong cultures - cultures of mutual trust, transparency, accountability, collaboration, ownership, and an unwavering commitment to well- understood, common goals - can adapt quickly to overcome even the toughest challenges.

Companies with strong cultures can remain focused on the mission and minimize the negative impacts of competitive headwinds or economic downturns. Companies with weak cultures struggle mightily in the face of adversity and are much more likely to flail about or fail outright.

Even in the best of times, creating and maintaining a strong culture is hard work and these are hardly the best of times. The unforeseen and largely unplanned-for Covid-19 pandemic is completely changing business and business culture.

The most disruptive pandemic-related change by far - and one that many business commentators and theorists are already speculating will be permanent - is that millions of employees at companies both large and small are now working from home.

A distributed workforce model is highly likely the “new normal” and it has vast implications for both individual employees, for management teams and for corporate culture. Google just announced their employees will work from home for the remainder of the year and I think remote work will become far more prevalent and acceptable going forward.

In my view, the winning businesses in this changed environment will be those that have the will and skill, the innovation and creativity to build or replicate healthy cultures in a distributed-workforce environment and make sure that sustaining cultural strength is a high priority.

What are some of the key elements for success?

Perhaps we can learn from companies that opted for a completely distributed workforce from inception. One such company is GitLab, the leader in collaboration tools for devops. The company has always had a 100% remote workforce – there is no company headquarters. This is reflected in its functional organization structure – they have a person whose title is ‘head of remote,’ which is responsible for the intersection of culture, process, transparency, collaboration, efficiency, inclusivity, onboarding, hiring, employer branding, and communication.

To scale this distributed company culture, GitLab developed a comprehensive employee handbook so that all have a clear set of guidelines about how the company will operate in a distributed environment.

For the vast majority of companies that are not ‘remote-first’ like GitLab, succeeding will a require a combination of what has worked in the past, along with the adoption of new tools and technologies that will enable distributed employees and teams to be as effective, connected, motivated and productive as they have been in traditional business settings.

First, communications. Second, communications, Third, communications.

I am tripling down on this point because no matter how diligent and dedicated an employee, working alone from home permanently can produce feelings of isolation and a lack of connection to the business. All communications must be relevant, motivational, and interesting.

At Black Duck Software we had a VP of Culture whose job it was to oversee internal communications. Tim Kenny had an amazing ability to make our internal communications fun and memorable. He had a real sense of stagecraft. After each meeting, company morale surged.

As companies shift to a more a distributed workforce companies need to acknowledge the disconnection challenge at the outset, creating and executing plans for more frequent communications with employees, as well as more opportunities for employees to

communicate and engage with peers and managers. Soliciting and sharing employee feedback on the communications initiatives will enable companies to better measure effectiveness and adjusting accordingly.

At the outset of this piece I listed attributes of strong cultures - mutual trust, focus, transparency, accountability, collaboration, ownership, and an unwavering commitment to well-understood, common goals.

I believe these attributes can - with emphasis on frequent, clear, honest communications - be hallmarks of a company with a distributed workforce. It is not about where you work. It is about how you feel about the work you are doing, how you and your work are valued.

At Black Duck, at the beginning of each year, we would set four or five key goals for the business, (revenue, profitability, new customer acquisition, product delivery dates...) which we’d announce at an all hands meeting.

Those goals were printed on a credit-card-sized piece of plastic and given to each employee. They could fit in a wallet or be taped to a desktop. Year-end bonuses were calculated based on achieving those goals. They never changed. We never moved the goalposts.

During an all hands meeting at the end of each quarter I would report in detail on the progress we were making - or were not making - on each goal. Though Black Duck was a private company we also shared all the financial numbers with the entire company and every employee had stock options.

That openness, accountability, frequent communications, and transparency-built trust. That trust sharpened focus and increased collaboration.

It was not magic.

With thoughtful planning, skillful execution, and superb communications a strong culture can be built or replicated in a distributed work environment.