Editor-in-Chief, Entrepreneur magazine
“Why do you like working here?”
As the editor in chief of Entrepreneur, overseeing a staff of journalists and producers, it’s not a question I’d ever flat-out ask someone on my team. Just imagine the awkwardness of that—the manager fishing for compliments, the employee scrambling to say whatever they think the manager wants to hear. But any manager can hear employees answering that question on their own. It happens in beautiful, unexpected moments. Maybe in a meeting. Maybe in office kitchen chitchat. Maybe, frankly, at the nearby bar over happy hour. Colleagues will start trading notes about their past work experiences, and will soon circle back to their current, shared experience. What’s successful here, they’ll ask? What’s not?
Listen closely in those moments. If you’ve built your company’s culture the right way, you’ll already know the answers to those questions.
Company culture is a hard phrase to define. It’s an abstraction—not some specific set of policies or a blueprint you can overlay on any organization. Rather, it’s a collection of things large and small. It’s a sum of parts: of how employees are treated, of how they treat each other, of what support they find at work, of what day-to-day life is like for them, and what produces their greatest sources of enjoyment and pride. It’s often said that there is no right or wrong culture; there’s only a culture that works, or a culture that doesn’t. It starts with a leader, but must filter completely downward. Company culture requires cohesion. Everyone must buy in.
At some level, you of course know this. You wouldn’t have picked this book up without it. You understand that companies live and die by their culture. It may not be as tangible or even as visible as the product you make or the revenue numbers you flaunt, but culture is the foundation upon which all the rest is built. And yet, you aren’t alone in wondering how to improve your own company’s culture. It’s not an easy, straightforward, or simple task. The answer is different for everyone.
That’s why we’ve structured this book the way that we have. There are no one-size-fits-all guides to company culture; that would be literally impossible to write. Rather, this book is a collection—of essays, of ideas, of conversations, of experiments, of insights, of the absolute best and most useful thoughts we found from people who truly understand how to build culture the right way. By understanding the experiences and insights contained in these pages, you’ll develop the instincts to shape your own culture.
So, back to that question: “Why do you like working here?” Recently, I had one of those wonderful moments where my team started answering the question. It happened while some editors and I were sitting around talking about the state of our industry. Media folks do that a lot these days; it’s a wild and uncertain time. And soon, inevitably, the conversation turned to our own jobs, and our own experiences.
One editor said he liked how small our team was—that everyone’s role felt extremely well-defined, and that, as a result, we all trusted and knew exactly how to work with each other. Another said she appreciated how supportive we are of side projects—that this is a place that expects hard work, but that also respects ambition and supports its employees’ growth. Another liked how flexible we are about time; we trust that everyone meets deadlines, so we’re not especially concerned about where any one team member is at any one time.
This was all gratifying to hear, because it was exactly what I wanted my team to experience. It is, frankly, an extension of my own vision of the perfect office: A tight, self-motivated superstar team, with each member eager to kick butt because they feel fulfilled by their work while never feeling trapped by it. And it was also a self-fulfilling vision: I hire people who I know share these values, and who approach work the way I do. I’ve always had side projects throughout my career, for example. They’ve helped me widen my skillsets, and I’d inevitably plow those skills back into my full-time gig. I wanted team members who did the same.
Can I continue to improve our culture? Of course. And I want to always be mindful of that. But I tell you this story as a way to say: I had a vision and found people who shared that vision, and as a result, the culture I wanted filtered through my team. It starts with the leader. It starts with you. And this book is your starting point. What comes next is the fun part.