4 Strategies To Create Strong Company Culture

Strong company culture is key to long-term success. A powerful story— a shared belief that makes up the core of culture— keeps people engaged and cooperating when nothing else can.

Joseph Campbell, wrote about shared stories, ‘Myths are public dreams’. He also stated that the rise and fall of civilisations throughout history depended on these stories’ shifts and power.

Building relationships around common beliefs matters. It engages your talent with your mission beyond the surface level, increases productivity, and keeps performance high even as you scale.

Why is culture engagement crucial as you grow?

Scale without losing your common story.

As growing involves an increasing number of people, it’s all too easy for the group to lose sight of the common purpose that made success possible in the first place.

According to evolutionary anthropologist Robin Dunbar, humans can only maintain 150 meaningful relationships. This is the maximum number to maintain a strong, cohesive group with a sense of responsibility and trust. 

This is not a problem in small startups, where the mission is the protagonist and employees are few and passionate. But as your company starts to gain traction and scale-up beyond 150, keeping everyone motivated, engaged with the mission, and on a united front becomes more difficult.

How to build a strong company culture.

Your shared story is essential to attracting new talent and creating a transformative purpose that moves hearts and minds. These strong shared stories make engaged growth possible and stave off the negative cultural impact of expansion.

What’s the kind of narrative you need to build? One that makes your people want to get involved, pursue the company’s goals as their own, and remain believers in the long run.

To set these stories in motion you need a message built on a larger mission that transcends the product, and effective leaders ready to make good hires and inspire them. To be most effective, these elements need to be in place before you begin scaling.

Here are our four methods to start building a strong company culture now.

1. Make promising hires.

Choose your employees for how their potential complements the future growth of your business. If you base your choices on a candidate’s past, you’re missing out on their development and capability to transform your business as they thrive.

Instead, make new hires prioritising aligned values, curiosity, and willingness to learn. Assemble the right team early on and invest in their training and evolution.

This way, you will have loyal employees who are devoted to your mission and just right for your company’s culture and needs. Taking the long view is the better hiring strategy.

2. Craft your shared story.

Founders and seed startup devotees are always aligned with the company’s mission. After all, it’s what they do and think about every day. But for later hires, it’s not so straightforward.

You need to propose a story people can enthusiastically get behind. This goes beyond the product you’re creating— it should be oriented to the world, society, and your collective legacy. 

Ask the questions, ‘What is the deeper change we’re making in the world? How are we making it better?’ That answer is your shared mission. To work, this needs to be communicated, present, and lived throughout the company.

3. Coach your leaders.

At the very start, the founder is the torchbearer of inspiration: they carry the vision and, hopefully, inspire others to follow. With growth, this relationship becomes less direct— the building of powerful stories now comes down to rock-solid teams relationships and strategically chosen leaders.

Leadership coaching is a must for creating a great company culture. By coaching your leadership team together, you create shared basic perspectives, joint growth, and collective culture-making.

4. Be inspiring.

As a leader, you have to be devoted to your growth. The reason— you need to be a figure your team and employees can admire and trust, and whose knowledge they respect.

Your actions need to be aligned with the mission and culture. Accountability and authenticity in this are key: you don’t need to be perfect, but you should be inspiring enough for people to appreciate your vision and follow your mission.

At Fulcrum, we help your company create long-term hiring strategies for growth. We focus on your business goals and culture and make strategic improvements to your recruitment processes that save you time, money and resources. Get in touch with us to learn more.

Joseph Campbell, wrote about shared stories, ‘Myths are public dreams’. He also stated that the rise and fall of civilisations throughout history depended on these stories’ shifts and power.

Building relationships around common beliefs matters. It engages your talent with your mission beyond the surface level, increases productivity, and keeps performance high even as you scale.

Why is culture engagement crucial as you grow?

Scale without losing your common story.

As growing involves an increasing number of people, it’s all too easy for the group to lose sight of the common purpose that made success possible in the first place.

According to evolutionary anthropologist Robin Dunbar, humans can only maintain 150 meaningful relationships. This is the maximum number to maintain a strong, cohesive group with a sense of responsibility and trust. 

This is not a problem in small startups, where the mission is the protagonist and employees are few and passionate. But as your company starts to gain traction and scale-up beyond 150, keeping everyone motivated, engaged with the mission, and on a united front becomes more difficult.

How to build a strong company culture.

Your shared story is essential to attracting new talent and creating a transformative purpose that moves hearts and minds. These strong shared stories make engaged growth possible and stave off the negative cultural impact of expansion.

What’s the kind of narrative you need to build? One that makes your people want to get involved, pursue the company’s goals as their own, and remain believers in the long run.

To set these stories in motion you need a message built on a larger mission that transcends the product, and effective leaders ready to make good hires and inspire them. To be most effective, these elements need to be in place before you begin scaling.

Here are our four methods to start building a strong company culture now.

1. Make promising hires.

Choose your employees for how their potential complements the future growth of your business. If you base your choices on a candidate’s past, you’re missing out on their development and capability to transform your business as they thrive.

Instead, make new hires prioritising aligned values, curiosity, and willingness to learn. Assemble the right team early on and invest in their training and evolution.

This way, you will have loyal employees who are devoted to your mission and just right for your company’s culture and needs. Taking the long view is the better hiring strategy.

2. Craft your shared story.

Founders and seed startup devotees are always aligned with the company’s mission. After all, it’s what they do and think about every day. But for later hires, it’s not so straightforward.

You need to propose a story people can enthusiastically get behind. This goes beyond the product you’re creating— it should be oriented to the world, society, and your collective legacy. 

Ask the questions, ‘What is the deeper change we’re making in the world? How are we making it better?’ That answer is your shared mission. To work, this needs to be communicated, present, and lived throughout the company.

3. Coach your leaders.

At the very start, the founder is the torchbearer of inspiration: they carry the vision and, hopefully, inspire others to follow. With growth, this relationship becomes less direct— the building of powerful stories now comes down to rock-solid teams relationships and strategically chosen leaders.

Leadership coaching is a must for creating a great company culture. By coaching your leadership team together, you create shared basic perspectives, joint growth, and collective culture-making.

4. Be inspiring.

As a leader, you have to be devoted to your growth. The reason— you need to be a figure your team and employees can admire and trust, and whose knowledge they respect.

Your actions need to be aligned with the mission and culture. Accountability and authenticity in this are key: you don’t need to be perfect, but you should be inspiring enough for people to appreciate your vision and follow your mission.

At Fulcrum, we help your company create long-term hiring strategies for growth. We focus on your business goals and culture and make strategic improvements to your recruitment processes that save you time, money and resources. Get in touch with us to learn more.