Your Culture
Beckie Taylor
Experienced Speaker, Consultant, Community Builder and Coach, specialising in confidence, business growth, leadership, and community– commitment to inclusion I vulnerability 💜 Ultimate Northern GameChanger 24
During my time working in the tech start up industry I find it hard to understand the lack of correlation and alignment with “technology” and “people”.
Technology discussions are focused on process, languages (code), tooling and the methodologies used - it can be easy to forget about the individuals operating in this environment.
But the aforementioned sections of a tech start up are the easy part, taking time to consider not only the technology choices but also the individuals involved, is key. Ensuring the two work side by side to form clear alignment helps maximise the performance for the individual and the business.
In growing a tech business defining your culture is paramount and the people who work or will work for you need to understand this in order to strengthen the business.
Once your culture is defined you will understand what skills and behaviours you need from a team and also what you can offer them in terms of a working environment! What you can offer has become even more crucial as the tech market has become full of highly skilled, and creative talent.
So why would they want to join you and what makes you stand out!
Do their values and beliefs meet those of your business, and do you offer them an engaging environment that they can thrive in!
Focusing on “mutual fit” is something I have seen more and more of over the past few years, the shift away from “what” they can do in terms of skills and experiences, don’t get me wrong this is important however, more emphasis is now on “will they fit in” and “why” do we want them to work for us and “why” would they want to. The term behaviours is seen as a “people” language but in tech speak it is seen as do they have the autonomy, self-drive and alignment needed to work in an agile environment.
I personally have experienced recruiting an individual purely because they have the perfect skill set and have touched the right technologies however, demonstrated different values to those of the business– The impact - disruptive working, non-alignment and resulting as a negative impact for the employee, their peers and the business as a whole.
Also remember you must believe in your culture not just say they have full autonomy because it sounds goods!
The clear alignment between “tech” and “people” is something I have a strong focus on and have been passionate about implementing in my work and will continue to do so!
A quote I love from Spotify which sums it up– “our culture is invisible you don’t notice it because It is there all the time but people need to understand it to strengthen it”