wtf is culture
blah blah blah
Culture: The invisible hand
Because it very much is this unknown force that moves us all forward and sets the standard for us all.
To me that honestly only comes from an example.
By that I mean the one individual who you respect and see setting the pace of a company. Usually, this is a natural leader—someone who leads by example.
This might be the person who comes in and is constantly talking to everyone in every department. Just getting to know them or genuinely curious about what’s going on.
Spending that extra time to get to know people, who they are & wtf they’re doing.
This is the person who talks less about ideas and simply goes to get it done.
This is the person who is constantly learning new stuff and sharing it with the class.
This is the person who loves to simply collaborate and think outside the box and is willing to push when others are scared.
This is a person who looks for the best traits and talents in people to nurture and make them shine.
It is with these types of examples that others are inspired to not only continue being on the team and working, but elevated to do the same and keep pushing this culture forward.
Culture is almost a united belief and set of tenets that we all live by together.
Whether like Nike, we value moving fast and being okay with breaking things, it’s the understanding of who we are and the pros and cons of our beliefs.
For every belief and action, there is a consequence of creation and destruction.
This is why vague tenets as we value: integrity, honesty, creativity, or some other woo-woo bullshit everyone does is just so surface-level.
Dig deeper.
What is integrity? Why do you believe that’s important? What does that look like? What is the consequence of being full of integrity?
It might be, regardless of how much someone is willing to pay us, if I don’t like who they are or the dishonest way they might be doing business - I won’t work with them. Period. On god.
It might be, that if someone lies on the team, they’re kicked because we genuinely believe in brutal honesty.
It’s not only principles but the actions and events to empower those principles.
This might be having roast sessions with each other once a week to help critique each other with new perspectives and push each other to do better or even just understand how their style of communication and action is being interpreted.
I learned this in music conservatory and being a part of a fraternity.
In my fraternity, my pledge class was one of the largest and most diverse groups. We had a 50/50 mix of upperclassmen and freshmen. Everyone came from a different major & everyone came from a different world. We established our own group culture that inspired and changed the way the entire fraternity was operational and running and reassessed their own culture.
How or why?
Well, we all became best friends and did amazing things together. We inspired each other to go above and beyond. We had many late-night sessions having deep philosophical talks about life, about what our dreams are, and how we could make them happen together. We built a support system of openness, of truth-telling, and execution at a high level with no fear.
In fraternal life, part of the process of becoming a brother is getting to know the rest of the fraternity brothers and also going through various trial events to challenge you as a person and see if you grew and if your values and beliefs fit those of the fraternity.
My class went above and beyond. We would spend hours meeting all the bros, not just doing the “required” but going beyond that. Meeting bros was a given for us — obviously, we should fucking know who the brothers are - but we all wanted a deeper connection and took our belief and spent more time with each of the bros. Whether that meant just going over to each other’s houses more and being bored doing homework together or having more crazy parties or hosting musical concerts together. We shared more time and experiences and made it a norm for everyone to want to do that. We showed everyone that we cared deeply and that you always had a support system to talk to, guide you if you wanted, and provide any help.
You were never alone.
We used to have late-night sessions for hours after school to just go around in a circle and tell each other what we liked about each other and what we hated. Every day for weeks leading into a trial. These made us all super close, brought out some super deep emotions, and also made us realize and gave us all the confidence to be ourselves fully and trust that we have brothers who have our back no matter what. We connected at a deeper level than most people experience in their life. This would translate to us all being top of our class in all our majors. We all just executed day to day from these principles and knowing the culture we built meant that we were a unit and that we had guiding principles to live by and adhere to that we believed and lived fully.
Seeing that fruit grow by living it only enforced our beliefs further.
The following year we became brothers, many of us ending up taking board positions and breaking all the “traditional” rules they had — such as a new brother can’t be on the board — and it was because we had proven and shown that with culture and the ability to hold each other accountable but guiding as loving brothers, anyone can do anything — even be president as a freshman. Because you can learn from anyone and should be supported. We just showed through our culture and execution of those tenets that we can perform at a high level and make it feel good.
We were built differently.
In music school, you get roasted and analyzed every single day by a peer or mentor. Whether you’re playing in your music lesson with your teacher, whether you play in studio class in front of all your instrumental peers, whether it’s a jury of 5 teachers to see your progress, whether it’s an area performance in front of all the string players, whether it’s conducting class in front of your peer and teachers…
The entire premise of the music conservatory is to get hyper-critiqued by everyone and their varying views and perspectives.
Why?
Because music and performance is the act of sharing a moment with others — and how you perform, how you phrase a line, how you look, and how you interpret pieces is different for everyone performing but also that experience of that sonic sound is different for everyone who listens and interprets it themselves in that moment.
It’s a unique moment for everyone and each POV is a valid reaction.
Your goal is to take the culmination of all these critiques and see what resonates with you, was that your goal? was it not? how can I use this information to improve? what should I focus on?
Maybe many people say I look sad playing a happy piece or not emotive enough.
Common theme, we spend so much focusing on technicals we forget the visual aspect of performance. So now I practice in front of a mirror to see my reaction and look out into the audience to connect deeply with people.
Maybe in conducting class people say, I love your direction and hand motions during lyrical slow sections but when things get sharp and angular in the sound you tend to struggle to be clear with your direction because it doesn’t seem natural to you.
Yes, very woo-woo for those who might not be music, but this is the same invisible hand behind culture.
We cannot describe it fully but when things don’t look or feel right — yet we can identify something is wrong.
It’s a unique phenomenon for sure and super hard to explain. I do think it is personal for everyone and how they feel, this is why we resonate with different people and different teams. You almost click immediately or know “This isn’t it”.
It’s about finding that frequency that works for you and tuning in to find your tribe and the culture that works for you. Whether it’s inspired by others & how they act or you have your own beliefs you’d like to share with others — simply do it.