Culture Focus

People are often surprised by Fable’s focus on our company’s culture. There’s a mistaken belief that a focus on building great culture is something only established companies have, not small startups; a nice-to-have, rather than a necessity. At a time when more and more companies are looking to streamline their costs, this belief comes at great expense.?

Culture is incredibly important, but it can be a nebulous thing—it’s hard to describe exactly what it means. My view is that culture is the intersection of what you value as a company, what your norms are, and what your beliefs are. Each of these is distinct, and each is important.?

Your values determine what’s important to you as a company. What principles will guide your actions?

Your norms are your behaviors and how you interact with one another. What expectations do you have for people’s behavior? When you disagree with someone, what words do you use??

Your beliefs are the foundation of the company’s premise. Why does this company exist? What are you trying to achieve?

The answer to each of these questions should be three to five attributes that are short, direct, and clear. Your company’s culture sits at the intersection of those answers, so once you have them, congratulations: you’ve just defined your culture!

This exercise may sound easy, but coming to a consensus on these principles requires quite a lot of thought and effort. When you’re a tiny startup strapped for resources, you might think you can put off defining company culture until you’re more established. But that’s a mistake.?

Fable is currently a company of about 30 people, but we first started talking about our culture when we were a team of three! We decided it was important to put in the time and energy at that incredibly early stage to define what we wanted Fable to be.

Why is it so important to define culture sooner rather than later? There are many great reasons, but I’ll give you the short answer: talent. Articulating your company’s values, norms, and beliefs—your culture—is really important in hiring and retaining great talent, both when it comes to knowing what a good hire looks like, and when it comes to attracting, retaining, and developing top talent.?

The best employees aren’t just skilled at their jobs—they share and contribute to the company’s values, norms, and beliefs. That means the perfect product manager at a hyper-competitive sales company may not be the right fit at a more collaborative content platform. Hiring is about finding the right match, and you can’t do that well if you don’t yet know who you are as a company. Prospective candidates can’t consider whether or not it’s a match, either, and that’s a problem for top talent. Especially these days, when people are reevaluating what work means and what role work plays in our lives, they’re looking for a company that matches their expectations.?

I often encourage job seekers to do as much diligence on a company as they’re doing on prospective hires. Make sure you’re doing your own reference checks! What do the leaders say their culture is? Do they live that culture, and how so? Do they have any company rituals that reinforce their culture? Who's on their management team, and who are their investors? Who's on their board? Smart hires will be checking for these things, which is all the more reason to define, embrace, and live your values and culture as a company.?

Do you agree that defining your culture early is important for startups?