Once upon a time, I worked for a large corporation that was BIG on culture. Ping pong tables, closets turned to nap spaces, a stocked kitchen, a gym, team building exercises. Man. I felt like I didn’t even need to leave.
Turns out, that’s not a good thing.
Maybe I wanted to go home to eat, sleep, and work out. Maybe I didn’t want to bare my soul during team meetings like I was at some iowaska retreat.
I mean, what in the ever-loving boundary-crossing was that?
What Company Culture Isn’t
…A bunch of BS that helps no one in their personal life and offers little professional growth. You’re not achieving much playing ping pong and not going home. I know that companies like to give perks to their team to make them feel some kind of way, but I’m not here for it.
At least, not the perks that look good on the surface but deliver nothing in the way of true benefit to the whole person, or the organization.
3 Culture Myths
Myth 1: Blame Google, Apple, or all of Silicon Valley, but for a while there, it was pretty apparent that company culture was being sold under the guise of being cool.
Problem: Cool doesn’t create trust. You can cater lunch followed by a half-caf dirty venti mochachinno oat milk latte with a sprinkle of fairy dust every day and still have a team that’s afraid to speak up.
Myth 2: Another myth is that culture is the founder’s personality. I used to think, “If I bring enough positivity, enough drive, enough vision, that is the culture. Just smile and swagger, Mike, smile and swagger – it’s all good, folks!”
Problem: Personality-driven culture collapses when the personality leaves the room. Sustainable culture isn’t charisma-dependent. It’s behavior-dependent. And let’s face it, people can see right through you.
Myth 3: Team building, meetings, and retreats make everyone feel valued.
Problem: If you aren’t valuing your employees’ time, they’re not going to value the work they do. It’s likely that team building during work hours is taking away from their productivity, which results in their stress. If you schedule a retreat that takes them away from their personal time or time with their families, it leads to more stress. That erodes any desire to care about your lofty goals. (Now, to note – we have huddles every morning, but we make them quick, and we make them count. And, we do have retreats, and we make sure they work for everyone involved.)
Myth 4: Set culture and forget it. Culture is fixed once defined.
Problem: Culture evolves as the company grows. What works for five people won’t automatically work for fifteen. What works for fifteen won’t work for fifty. Leaders must revisit and refine culture intentionally. Otherwise, it drifts. And drift creates confusion.
So, what to do?
What Good Company Culture Is
I would rather have a conversation with an employee to hear about their family, personal goals, or most recent accomplishment outside of work than throw some lame bag of pretzels at them so they stay to work through dinner. It’s an easy lift for me, and it makes employees feel seen, safe, and valued – and that leads to their big-time dedication.
That, my pal, is called leadership. And I didn’t know it until I started building my most recent business with the company President, Kelsey (she’s flipping awesome, in case you didn’t know).
Kelsey is very much about the whole person. And with each hire, she not only considers what they can do for us, but what we can do for them, too. Because if we serve them also? Oh man. The dedication is off. The. Charts. People become more comfortable sharing their innovation, are more readily available to give you their energy, and they support the mission because they feel supported, too. The company becomes unstoppable.
Ends up, when you support the needs of the humans who make up your team, everyone wins.
Culture is what you tolerate. It’s what you give. It’s what you reward. It’s what you repeat.
Company culture solutions – supporting the humans who work with you
When I wrote All In, it was because I witnessed my company grow in a way that I had to share with the world. There’s a lot to the book, but for this article, let’s talk about the FASO model. The WHAH???
FASO stands for Fit, Ability, Safety, and Ownership. Here’s how they complete your culture puzzle:
Fit: You get a resume, it checks the boxes. Ta da! The End! Hired. Hold up, buddy. Do we fit them? Just because they can fulfill the work requirements doesn’t make them a fit. Pay attention to your conversations when interviewing. Do they seem to have the same values as you and your company? You don’t have to give a pop quiz, but do tune in to the conversations you have pre-hire. Do they love to work as a team? Are they creative, innovative, and collegial?
Ability: Do they have other skills that can be used in another area? It’s important to recognize someone may be bringing even more to the table than you’re looking for. Acknowledging that, and aligning it to the person’s interests, will make that person feel seen, confident, and interested in the company’s success.
Safety: This is on you. Leaders must create safe environments. This means physically, emotionally, and financially, your team knows that their best interests are in your list of values. When people feel safe, they’re more likely to focus on the work.
Ownership: When I needed a prez, Kelsey was there for the job. When I asked for a scheduler, and we hired Erin, I had to give up all of my personal details to her. ALL of them. When I needed help in marketing and managing partnerships, Andrea was hired. When I didn’t have time to write all communications, like email or create all of the social media posts, Jenna was up for it. Wanted to create a new arm of the business – here comes Adayla. Did I have time to manage Edison collective and book deriatves? Heck no – so thank you, Amy. And who was going to run FTN certifications? Not me! Enter Corde. You see where I’m going. This is more than delegation. This is a full-fledged-drop-your-ego-let-them-own-it scenario. And it takes a lot of trust. But we hired well, and man, having my team own their roles means that not only am I hands on parts of the business, but that each person on my team acts like an owner. They’re treated as such. They care as such. They work as such.
One more thing
What I’ve also seen work is clarity. Clarity about expectations. Clarity about decision-making. Clarity about what “great” looks like. When people know the standard and understand how their role connects to the bigger mission, tension decreases. Performance increases.
Most cultural issues are not personality problems; they’re clarity problems.
If there’s one truth I’d emphasize, it’s this: culture is how we treat each other when no one is performing at their peak. When someone makes a mistake. When numbers dip. When stress rises. Do we shame or solve? Do we isolate or support? Do we blame or learn?
Culture is revealed under pressure.
When built well, culture becomes a stabilizer. It allows teams to move faster because trust is already in place. It allows innovation because safety exists. It allows accountability because expectations are clear.
You don’t need slogans. You need standards. You don’t need hype. You need consistency. You don’t need to impress your team. You need to protect them — from chaos, from ambiguity, and sometimes from your own overreaction.
A Short Homework Reflection
- First, ask yourself: What behaviors are we consistently rewarding, even unintentionally?
- Second, identify one area where clarity is missing. What expectation needs to be made explicit?
- Third, consider the last time something went wrong. How did you respond, and what did that teach the team?
Culture is not built in big declarations. It’s built into daily decisions. And the good news? That means you can strengthen it starting today.
Here’s to your unstoppable team.
-Mike
