Don’t try to copy someone’s company culture

“Why don’t you have free lunches at office like Google? Every company is doing it to lure their employees with tricks like this. Why don’t you also do it?” This is what Aman, the HR at one of the IT companies in the city, had to say when she asked to generate ideas for bettering the existing company culture.

When I hear such statements, the first thing that comes to my mind is ‘If Google had thought like imitating some other company’s culture, would it be the company that everyone admires today?’ Shouldn’t a company culture be the reflection of its beliefs?

Being a leader at ProofHub, I don’t believe in the imitation game. I mean, how can you create a company culture by simply doing what some other company is doing? Culture is something indigenous to an organization, and therefore it is not something you should try to copy from someone else.

Cultures are not built with quick fixes

Following someone else’s footsteps is a quick fix for solving your company culture problems. However, there is no certainty about what worked for them, it will work for you as well. Think of any example. Facebook became one of the most desired places to work in the world simply because they did not follow someone else. They created a culture by experimenting, and balancing the things that suit their employees.

If they had tried to imitate Google, IBM or any other company for that matter, would they have been the same? Chances are quite bleak.

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Look and learn, but don’t copy

There are two ways of looking at things when you say following other company’s culture. First is to learn what the company is trying to achieve with their efforts. The second one, which most of the companies do, is to blindly follow what other successful companies are doing. This is what the example shared in the beginning of this post signifies.

And, that’s the reason they fail to establish a culture. Don’t forget you can pretend to be the cool kid in school, but you cannot be cool just by pretending.

Be yourself, everyone else is already taken - Oscar Wilde

When I started ProofHub I had a clear list of things that I did not want in a company. And, one of those things was trying to be someone that I am not. At ProofHub we have our own culture, and we don’t try to imitate others.

We do what we love do - and that is to help teams become more productive at what they are doing. I don’t expect my company to become the next Google or Netflix or Facebook. I look forward to becoming the first ProofHub. And, everyone at the office has embraced this culture.

Everything that glitters is not gold

To sum it up, I’d like to quote this age old saying ‘everything that glitters is not gold’. Your company culture revolves around what you can do as an organization to make your employees happy. Can you afford to do what giants are doing? Certainly you cannot. For example - Netflix has adopted the unlimited vacation policy because they have instilled the culture where everyone is ready to take responsibility that work won’t get hampered while they are absent.

Not every organization can have the same luxury, and same level of commitment - to be honest. They were able to build such a culture over the course of time. They were clear of what they wanted to achieve.

But, your goals might not be the same as theirs. So, you need to be smart enough to set a clear direction for your sails and then guide the ship in that direction. Creating a company culture that speaks for itself and the one that employees love requires time and effort. It is not something you can get overnight by imitating someone like Google, Facebook, Netflix, Tesla or any other company for that matter.

So, what culture do you want to create for your company?

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Vartika Kashyap runs the marketing team at ProofHub — a project management software for teams of all sizes. She is a seasoned marketing professional who is an expert in digital marketing and entrepreneurship. She’s been featured among LinkedIn’s Top Voices for the year 2016. Connect with Vartika on LinkedIn, Medium and Twitter.

Also follow our company page @ProofHub to get the recent updates about our tool, published articles, motivational quotes & presentations.

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