Culture Isn't Just Free Snacks

Finding the tech culture that matches your vibes

Culture is like dark matter: we’re all influenced by it, sometimes in ways we don’t expect, but struggle to define it. 

Some folks think of culture as vibes, evidenced by happy hours, catchy slogans, or company perks. 

While these are signals, there’s a deeper layer to culture. Let’s break it down. 

What is culture? 

Culture is the behavior that an organization implicitly and explicitly rewards and punishes. It is a set of beliefs and behaviors that determine how individuals are supposed to succeed in an organization. 

In other words, if no one was looking, what would the organization expect you to do in a given situation? What would they not expect you to do? 

Unsurprisingly, culture evolves over time, as organizations grow and executives come in/leave. But there’s often key cultural tenants that stay core to an organization, especially if the founder is still involved in the organization. 

Catchy slogans not a culture make :)

Creating a culture map

When analyzing a company's culture, it's useful to consider spectrums, not absolutes. While the following questions might appear binary (yes/no), most cultures fall somewhere in between. By understanding the extremes on these spectrums (as well as their tradeoffs), you can create a "culture map” of your current and/or ideal culture. Here are the components: 

• Decision making style (top down vs bottoms up): are decisions made by executives with employees expected to execute on them (top down), or do executives expect teams to drive decisions (bottoms up)? If the latter, then what guidance do you receive from executives? 

  • Explanation: It might seem like bottoms up decision making is the best, but often these cultures tend to struggle with making decisions since everyone is a stakeholder. In top down culture, it might be challenging for you to feel like you have strategic influence and/or autonomy, but if your executive team is sharp, you’ll likely have a clear direction. Especially for PMs, this is a critical one to understand from the get go. 

• Decision making pace (speed vs rigor): is it more important to get something out as quickly as possible, or fully vet a solution before moving forward? 

  • Explanation: Generally speaking, startups tend to value speed, whereas larger companies value rigor, but that can vary depending on the values of the founder and/or exec team. It’s also possible the answer to this question varies based on the context (i.e. speed in execution but rigor in strategy). This question also correlates with an organization’s relationship to structure, as companies that tend to value speed tend to be lighter on structure (and embrace chaos) versus those that tend to value rigor might over-rely on process. 

• Level of communication (Open vs closed): does the organization expect to talk about its problems or exchange feedback openly, or does it expect you to do so in subtle ways? 

  • Explanation: Organizations that openly exchange feedback tend to do a better job with setting expectations and holding folks accountable. Note that there’s an extreme version of this (like Bridgewater) where people are so open with their feedback that the amount of feedback can become overwhelming. Organizations with closed communication models often struggle with making changes, often stuck in groupthink. 

• Measuring success (output vs outcomes): does the company value delivery or outcomes? If the latter, do they only value outcomes that can be measured, or does qualitative feedback matter? 

  • Explanation: I want to emphasize that one end of the spectrum isn’t necessarily “better” than the other. An organization that’s too outcomes oriented can often miss the forest from the trees, or create an environment where people don’t work on projects because there isn’t a direct way to measure impact. An organization too focused on outcomes can get stuck on shipping stuff that might not move the needle on important outcomes. This is one that’s critical for understanding how an organization promotes talent and values results.

• Work-life separation (Work is work vs work is family): does your workplace value separation between work and personal life, with minimal expectations on workplace socialization? Does the expectation lie in building close workplace friendships, effectively turning colleagues into a chosen family, especially in building influence?

  • Explanation: some workplaces treat work as a separate entity, where people are expected to purely focus on work at work, with minimal space for their personal life. There probably isn’t much active socialization inside and outside of work. On the other hand, you have folks that think of work like a family, which means many of your colleagues might be friends, but it also means a lot of your time becomes invested in building relationships at work. Lines between the personal and professional can get blurry, leading to unforeseen consequences. 

Special note: diversity

Many folks (often POC or women) struggle with company culture because tech is a white male dominated industry. I’ve seen this first hand as a coach. Diversity and inclusion are both important markers of culture. Ultimately, I think a lot of a company’s approach to diversity is a result of the founder/CEO/executives background and whether they are actually invested in the cause. Values like speed/rigor also influence the organization’s attitude towards this. For example, if you believe in (some) rigor, you will likely take that to your DEI efforts. But this is easier said than done, especially given that a lot of folks starting/running companies don’t come from a diverse background. 

Case study: my failed startup experience

One of the best ways to learn about culture is through failure, especially in the interviewing and onboarding stages. 

Here’s an example from my own experience: I once joined a startup where I thought it was a product-led organization, only to realize it was a product-enabled one. There was a large focus on output and speed, with very little emphasis and value given to structure. By week 2, I had already failed: bad meetings, slow product delivery, and constant anxiety. I blamed myself for “failing,” overworking and struggling to disconnect, leading to burnout. 

Looking back, I see that experience as a gift, because it taught me a lot about which product team cultures work best for me. I learned that: 

• I value organizations that emphasize rigor for strategy and speed for execution. 

• I want to work in a product-led organization, where product has a bigger role beyond project management. 

• I want to value metric changes for post-product market fit and speed of learnings for pre-product market fit products. I want to work at companies that value research and metrics when making product decisions, rather than choosing one over the other. 

This exercise helped me better understand what I was looking for next when I left the startup. I was grateful that I had a coach that acted as a neutral sounding board, helping me disentangle my learnings from my feelings. 

Offering: define the right company culture. 

If you’re looking for a job (or considering looking for a job), take a moment to evaluate your ideal cultural environment. One suggested process: 

• Look through the spectrums outlined above and ask yourself where you think you fit. Don’t overthink this. Take 5 minutes max to go through each question (1 minute per question). This is your initial culture map. 

• Then, for each question, ask yourself why. Which experiences (positive or negative) have led you to that conclusion? This will pressure test your intuition. Take as much time as you need to introspect. 

• Then, repeat the above two steps to build culture maps for your current or potential future employer. How aligned are the two maps? For the missing information: what do you need to learn in order to gain more confidence in the map? 

This is hard work, but I believe the intentionality will help you thrive in your next role. 

If you need some support in figuring this out, then I’ll be happy to work with you in a coaching capacity. Here’s my calendly to get the ball rolling. 

Note: this is the second in a series of articles on breaking down common career values: unpacking assumptions, real-life case studies, and free exercises that I use with my coaching clients. Next up: work-life balance! Subscribe below if you want to receive updates directly to your mailbox. 

Thanks for Reading! 

I’m on a journey to create a blended career across the creative arts, tech, and business. This newsletter is my way of sharing my reflections, thoughts, and advice along the way. Here are some ways to support or further collaborate together! 

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