These slides were used for a talk I gave to MBA students at the Carroll School of Management at Boston College, in the "Managing People in Organizations" class. The lecture was on culture, and my task was to provide them with the perspective of creating a culture at a startup, and the unique challenges that come with that along the way. I gave them a little framework, called the "Three Ps", to help the think about the key issues in culture creation. The bottom line here is that culture matters, and at a startup its especially hard to create and maintain.
Designing and Building Culture at a Startup: Three Key Elements to Keep in Mind
1. Rishi Dean
rishi@rishidean.com
www.rishidean.com
[ Three practical tools to help you ]
Boston College Carroll School of Management
September 15, 2010
2. Been
on
the
ground
floor
of
three
startups,
shaping
Founding
Team
and
growing
them
Been
in
big
companies
and
little
ones,
and
involved
in
Employee
/
Consultant
different
capacities
with
all
Involvement
types
Seen
the
good,
the
bad,
and
the
ugly
Advisor
/
Mentor
Made
some
many
mistakes,
which
I’ll
share,
so
you
don’t
have
to
Timing
Past
Present
Rishi
Dean
–
www.rishidean.com
2
19. Coordination
/
Attachment
Selection
Control
Star
Work
Potential
Professional
Engineering
Work
Skills
Peer
/
cultural
Commitment
Love
Fit
Peer
/
cultural
Bureaucracy
Work
Skills
Formal
Autocracy
Money
Skills
Direct
*Burton,
M.
D.
(2001).
The
company
they
keep:
Founders'
models
for
organizing
new
firms
[Electronic
version].
In
C.
B.
Schoonhoven
&
E.
Romanelli
(Eds.),
The
entrepreneurship
dynamic
(pp.
13-‐39).
Stanford:
Stanford
University
Press.
Rishi
Dean
–
www.rishidean.com
19
25. Keeping
regular
meetings
Celebrating
the
small
stuff
Remote
teams
Tough
hires
Tougher
fires
Personnel
issues
Winning
a
deal
…
Rishi
Dean
–
www.rishidean.com
25
26. Startup
culture
is
unique
Starting
from
zero
(it
just
doesn’t
happen)
Driven
by
few,
shaped
by
many
Lots
of
external
factors
Can’t
cut
&
paste
/
cherry
pick
–
must
fit
your
situation
Three
tools
of
culture
creation
(must
be
internally
consistent):
1. Purpose:
what
you
value
2. People:
who
you
recruit
&
retain
3. Process:
what
systems
you
build
Hard
to
build,
easy
to
break
Rishi
Dean
–
www.rishidean.com
26