It's Never too Early to Invest in Your Culture of Innovation
We are not trying to break the Guinness World Record of 229 people! We are talking comfortably two per seat! While I was at IDEO, David Kelley’s focus was on building an innovative culture that was creative, collaborative and fun. The interview process for new employees was lengthy and circuitous since our primary objective was to assess cultural fit. When the company could no longer fit on a bus, we would go through organizational mitosis and divide into smaller groups with enough DNA in each to sustain the culture. This approach was effective during my entire 17-year tenure at IDEO as the company organically grew from 12 people in an office in Palo Alto to over 400 people in offices spread throughout the US and internationally.
David’s intuition on this was spot on. Jason Evanish, CEO of Lighthouse, has spoken to thousands of leaders and managers and has found a common pattern that everything breaks down when a company or organization reaches about 25 people. In his blog post, he notes that this number could be as high as 40 for a skilled manager and as low as 10-15 for nascent organizations. Below is a table showing the how the number of Lines of Communication (LoC) between individuals in a group (n) grows rapidly by the equation: LoC = n * (n-1)/2.
Evanish refers to a Reid Hoffman interview with Joe Gebbia, co-founder of Airbnb. Gebbia shares one of his key learnings about building a company culture from Tony Hsieh. Hsieh told him that if you care about culture, make sure you invest early on to get it right from the beginning. Hsieh used the metaphor that culture is like cement. “It is easier to mold concrete when it is still wet than to chip away at it when dry. Thus, the DNA that you establish in the early stage of a company has tremendous impact on how the culture plays out over time.” Cultural concrete starts to form when 2 people are working together, and it hardens quickly at a rate proportional to the growth and age of an organization.
At ZIP Innovations we help established and start-up organizations build effective cultures of innovation to grow, adapt and thrive in times of uncertainty and change. Our engagement begins with a thorough audit of organizational performance and individual individual skills and abilities to identify systemic challenges and opportunities. Based on these findings, we then work collaboratively to craft a plan to meet our client’s strategic innovation objectives. While this requires hard work and commitment, we are there to guide you through every step of the journey.
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