Step 10 - Establish the Culture

Perhaps the most critical and complex step in building an ExO involves establishing its culture. Think again about PayPal’s culture of close friendship rather than formal work relationships. In a fast-scaling organization, culture, along with the MTP and Social Technologies, are the glue that keeps a team together through the quantum leaps of an ExO’s growth. Needless to say, given that even defining the term ‘culture’ has proven enduringly difficult, this is a particularly challenging step.

According to noted hotelier Chip Conley, “Culture is what happens when the boss leaves.” That pretty much sums it up. We would only add that culture is a company’s greatest intangible asset. As many have observed, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” From the “HP Way” and IBM’s “Think” to Google’s playrooms and Twitter’s warehouse, it is hard to overstate culture’s added value. 

Establishing a corporate culture starts with learning how to effectively track, manage and reward performance. And that begins with designing the OKR system we outlined in Chapter 11 and then continues through the process of getting the team habituated to transparency, accountability, execution, and high performance. 

Finally, and this has often proven the most difficult of all (especially when it conflicts with the personalities of the company’s leadership), a great corporate culture is built on trust. Employees and customers need to believe that the company has their best interests at heart. And management needs to place its trust in employees to make the right choices, even to propose new products or a change in the direction of the company. Only with trust can an ExO move swiftly and assuredly at the pace the new economy will require. 

Luckily, with the combination of an MTP and the IDEAS attributes, trust is built into an ExO, thus the culture is almost prescriptively assured.