That Company Culture Question: What Is it?

Note: Below is a version of a memo I sent to the Skift team, after our annual retreat in Puerto Rico last month. It has become bit of a tradition: I write a team memo after every retreat, and this retreat was the best we had in our company history, for so many reasons. I wrote up some lessons as I reflected on the retreat, what came out of it, and the six years of building Skift along with all of the Skift team.

Six years into Skift, one of the most common questions I get as the Founder and CEO is a cliched and simple one: What is your culture like? And for those who know us — have known us for a while — the question turns into: How do you keep your culture?

The first one usually comes from candidates we interview for hiring. The second one comes with a subtext of wonder: Everything about Skift culture looks amazing from outside, how do you do it?

I always start by defining what our culture is not: it is not this mythical/magical thing that comes at the end of work, an add on to make the drudgery bearable.

For us culture stems from meaningful work we do, and *each of us* seeing the tangible in-situ effects of that work — help change the direction of the future of travel and dining, even — in a reasonably short time frame on the people we create everything for.

Our culture ties in to the larger promise of travel. “If you are tired of Skift, you are tired of the promise of travel,” a line I use often. That, in essence is what our promise is to the global travel industry: that we are eternally curious about the business and creative possibilities of travel and what it means to the world at large.

That is what gives meaning to *everything* we do as a company. That is what inhabits our culture.

We see the effects of that work best at our flagship Skift Global Forum in New York, where you all see the best of Skift brand and culture comes to life in every way possible. That is why the team dinner at the end of the Forum is such a great feeling — an adrenaline rush — , even though we are beyond-dead tired at that stage.

“Assume Good Intent”

Now to the part about keeping the culture. Those of you in our New York office may have noticed these two new “posters” that came in recently (still waiting to be mounted on the walls). They give you a sense what is at stake to keep that culture we have and why it matters.

It hasn’t been easy to work at keeping our culture-stems-from-meaningful-work culture and it won’t ever be. It is supposed to be hard, the hard is what makes it great.

We have gone through a growing up — the “Young Adult” phase as I call it — of Skift over the last year, especially the first half of this year. The growth pains, on team organization, on processes, on some hiring misfires, on my own transition to hands-off management, all of these gave us a needed push to evolve in so many tangible and intangible ways in the last year. And that Sisyphean task on our evolution continues in quiet ways every day.

“Assume Good Intent.” That is a phrase I came upon in the last year and I have been so taken by its radical simplicity. I am really struck by the open vulnerability implicit in it. So much of the meaningful and non-political nature of the team, of our intra-company relationships, of your relationship with the company, can be preserved if we use good intent as a construct for navigating the work life. The Skift Life Principle, if you will.

In practical terms that means our responsibility as a company to you is to continue to build the boutique, humane company we celebrate in our core values, that we put your professional and personal lives first in building the company, and that you buy into that intent. That we assume you have the best of the company at heart in every bit you give to it, through your inevitable ups and downs of work life you have here at Skift. That we are all in it to do great work that gives great value to our readers and subscribers. And while we are at it, we are having a great time doing it.

“Empower From Behind”

There are so many reasons why our annual retreat last month in Puerto Rico was so meaningful. That glorious last evening at the beach in San Juan, that first photo above captures so much of where are today as a team that really likes being with each other, that easy camaraderie we have with each other. I am humbled by the thought of it, blessed that you all are part of it, and proud of how far each of you have come in your long and short journeys with Skift.

I posted the photo on my social media channels with this language: “If you’re ever so blessed in your life to build and be with a team like this, make sure you end up celebrating them & with them on a beach and a sunset like this. As Skift retreat in Puerto Rico comes to an end, feels like a seminal moment in the growth of our company, each of us.” And the amazing part is it came through to others who saw this photo, in the reactions that I got after, two of which you can see below which capture the gist of it.

The second comment from Jason, a long time industry friend of ours, is particularly resonant to me and as I have thought through it since, the visual presented through this photo has been very clarifying on my role — and indeed the role of our management and team leaders — going ahead. Instead of “lead from the front” as I have done for first five years, a necessary role to build a company in its infancy, I am now transitioning to “empower from behind” as is the management of our company. From being *the* face of Skift to being a face of Skift is role that I now cherish.

So the next time anyone asks me that culture question, I now have a better answer: I will just show that photo above. This is us, this is our culture.

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P.S.: If they ask me for more visual evidence of our culture, I’ll show them this photo below. I think I don’t have to explain anymore why I love it so much.

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Rafat Ali is the CEO and founder of Skift, the global travel intelligence company: News, Analysis, Research and conferences on online travel, airlines, hotels, tourism, cruises, startups, tech and more. Subscribe to the daily newsletter and you will be a lot smarter about the future of travel, we guarantee it!

Previously, he was the founder of paidContent, which he sold to Guardian Media Group in 2008.