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September 15, 2014

Don’t Force It: Culture in the Workplace

 

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Last week, a few of us at Delucchi Plus had the opportunity to visit The Motley Fool to learn a little bit about what they do and how they do it. It wasn’t a lesson in profitability, process or growth, but a lesson in something that’s powerful enough to effect each one: culture. We learned how Fools have created a culture that has won awards and built success. Woven into this post are some terms from The Motley Fool’s culture glossary:

Fools Errand: Every month, one employee’s name is chosen out of a hat. That employee must take two of the next four weeks off to do whatever they want, but they cannot be in contact with the office.

There’s a game room, a nap room, free healthy foods to snack on, plenty of natural light, plenty of desk chotchkies (including seahorses in the lobby), but any office can have any of these things. Yes, even seahorses. It was more amazing to hear about the things you couldn’t see, like their “culture of trust.” The culture of trust is an understanding among the 300 people at The Motley Fool that they’re responsible for their work getting done. As long as that happens, you can use the game room as often as you want, take naps in the nap room every single day, work from home if it suits you and take as much vacation as you need to. The culture of trust facilitates these benefits.

Pantsed: If someone breaks the rules, they won’t be fired, but they will be mocked. If you walk away from your desk and your computer isn’t locked, someone will send an embarrassing email from your address.

There are still rules that need to be followed, but nothing is mandatory without being compelling. If you break a rule, you’ll hear about it, but only because someone sent an embarrassing email from your computer. The fun stuff isn’t mandatory either. If you don’t want to ever use the game room or go to office yoga, that’s fine. Culture here isn’t forced, but it can be compelling.

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Desks on Wheels: Collaboration is key, and so instead of an assigned desk that was made for sitting still, there are desks on wheels and plenty of opportunities to unplug and roll to collaborate with the team.

Another way to keep culture at the forefront is right off the bat during interviews. The Motley Fool hires for three things in this order: 1) Cultural Fit 2) Demonstrated Passion and 3) Skill. Here, the combination of culture and passion first will almost always make up for any lack of skill for a few reasons at the Motley Fool: they foster a culture of learning (so you can gain those skills) and chances are, you’ll move around a little bit. There have been instances where a Fool that is a copy editor becomes a web designer because of their attention to detail.

Model from the top: at the Motley Fool, culture trickles down. Employees follow a senior manager’s lead, especially in culture.

How does The Motley Fool do it? They keep trying new things, which in my opinion is important at every company ever. They’re also not afraid to fail, which is something you hear a lot of these days, but rings true. There have been times where things they propose fail miserably (like making every employee go to investing clubs or removing chairs from conference rooms so employees stand more for their own health) but they’re not permanent. Instead, they’re flexible, or if the idea really is just terrible, it’s scrapped completely. Being open and transparent by letting employees know that you’re just going to “try something new” and see what happens opens the floor for them to try new things without having to worry about lasting or negative impacts. At one point, Sam, our tour guide at The Motley Fool said that when they face a problem in the organization, they could spend the next six months putting together a comprehensive solution to the problem, or they could spend the next 10 minutes coming up with their best solution and tweak it as they go, and employees know that it’s a work in progress.