How Healthy Company Culture Can Make or Break Your Organization

Today we participated in a Masterclass Panel along with Lauren Boyd (@Lauren_Boyd_PHL) of Seer Interactive on "How Healthy Company Culture Can Make or Break Your Startup" moderated by Sekinah Brodie (@sekinahspeaks) ?of Penji. We were given a number of really excellent questions to prepare us for the panel, and realized that they applied to any organizational entity, not just startups. Please let us know if this was helpful perspective on an organization you're involved with and how it does or doesn't apply to you and yours. It will help us grow!

What is the biggest measure of a thriving culture to both of you?

The biggest measure of a thriving culture in our opinion, rather in it's in a workplace, a social group, or a relationship is the sustainable wellness of the individuals involved as they pursue both common goals and individual goals. This means that you can have a collection of cultures that look extremely different from one another but are successful because those involved are thriving, they have their personal needs met, are able to pursue their personal goals with enough success to continue pursuing them, and contribute to the success of the goals of the group in the process.

How can we create safe spaces that are inclusive of all people? How can we all be our authentic selves without crossing the line and offending others?

We think conceptualizing safe spaces that are inclusive of all people is actually pretty simple. We invest resources in the pursuit of individual and communal needs equitably while removing barriers to individual goal pursuits in a manner that mitigates direct and systemic harm and responds to harmful impacts through restorative justice and relationship repair. We can be our authentic selves without causing harm by developing our empathic engagement of others and being mindful about our relationships.

What are some of the intangibles that you both need in order to consider an environment healthy?

Healthy is subjective, so subject agnostic, intangible implications of environmental health include authenticity, positivity, security. By this we mean, the environment supports authentic existence and growth rather than requiring assimilative mimicry, those in the environment feel positively about the environment and the ways in which it impacts them and their ability to impact it, and feeling secure enough to actually exist authentically, to share positive thoughts and feelings, and to be able identify sources of negative impacts or outcomes to pursue improvements to the environment.

What do you both do in order to mentally care for yourselves at work and outside of work?

Our best strategy so far and one that we strive to create systemic maintenance of, has been engaging in authenticity, positivity, and security anywhere we're able to. You gotta do what you gotta do to be as happy, healthy and whole as you can manage working with what you have. What that looks like for us as a Queer, Nonbinary, Relationship Anarchist are:

• Mindfulness rituals like washing dishes without thinking about anything else but the dish we are washing, taking a weekly herbal baths, and starting each day by identifying something positive we feel grateful for that makes life worth living no matter how the day at hand goes
• Wearing whatever we want in the morning without regard to the opinion of others so we feel comfortable in our body all day, rather it's on top of a push up bra or binder, bikini thong or boxer briefs, and studying Aikido.
• Staying connected to the people we love, whether it's Bro Book Club (we're reading The Physics of Superheroes), Cooking Dinner (That's where we tell everyone we miss what we're making for dinner and give open invitations to join us, which motivates us to cook even if no-one is there by the time we finish with leftovers for work), or sending audio thoughts to loved ones we haven't or don't text message often.

This looks really different for every person. In an organization, you're incapable of predicting what that looks like for your team members but you can still support them in their pursuits.

If you can't see or be your authentic self in the workplace, and you aren't willing or able to change workplaces, then invest time and energy with people and in spaces where you can be authentic outside of work in a meaningful way. Resource groups and the initiative they conceptualize can help organizations cultivate centers of authenticity that benefit the organization just by letting people be themselves together. 

If you have people or processes in your life that you don't feel positively about, take a good look at all of your available resources, however few they may be, and try to find ways to re-arrange or reinvest them to produce more positive outcomes or feelings. Organizations can use feedback tools and third party analysis to identify areas producing feelings of positivity and pinpoint sources of negativity that can inform improvements. 

If you don't feel a sense of security in your work or your social groups or your relationships, get new resources. Often that's presented as 'find a new job' or 'make new friends' or 'just leave your partner' which can sometimes be helpful. Often what is more helpful though is to educate yourself so your resources produce more value even if they don't change, rearrange the process by which you engage with them so it creates less harm and is more sustainable, and continually get new perspectives. Organizations can do this by engaging members or employees in the examination and restructuring of systems and processes through resource groups and feedback loops.

How important is it for companies to be progressively more empathic to the mental health needs of their teams? This includes medical benefits, work from home days, trusting and open communication, providing resources for those who may be struggling, etc. What are some things your companies do to address this?

There is nothing more important than empathy for any organization consisting of more than one person. Everything is built on relationships and relationships require knowing self and having empathy for what isn't self. For organizations of any size larger than a single person, the most empathetic thing it can do is ask questions, listen to answers, and collaborate towards solutions that increase authenticity, positivity, and security by gaining resources and perspectives. In regards to individual mental health, organizations can acknowledge that it has a direct relationship with the communal health of the organization and it's capacity to thrive in the pursuit of it's overall goals. You can use feedback loops to ask questions about what barriers people are encountering in their pursuit of wellness and listen to answers attentively. You can have a third party come in and do ethnography on your organization to produce deep perspective. You can engage employees by presenting the resources that you have to invest, and collaborating with them on how to invest or organize them in such a manner than individual wellness benefits. 

One of the ways Linode does this is in our partnership with Joyable, an online solution for managing anxiety and depression that's fully covered and is an anonymous resource that doesn't impact employment in any way. It's a resource I have used with great improvement following a violent home invasion, and that I know coworkers use for every thing from check ups that they are as well as they feel, to bridging the gap during the search for more in-depth mental health support for depression, to an alternative for traditional on site therapy altogether. Finding a therapist is hard, but finding help is made much easier using this tool. Can't mention that without a shout out to our Joyable coach, Rob, Hi Rob!

How important is it to have all types of people, races, genders, and mindsets represented in the workplace? How does that make a product or service better?

Every perspective is a resource and the fewer of them you have the more disadvantaged your organization is in the pursuit of it's goals and the greater it's capacity for doing harm in the process both to itself and to it's environment. We exist in a multidimensional reality wherein every action, product or service interacts with others. If you aren't viewing it from all angles, and engaging in empathic collaboration to make improvements, you are always missing a big part of the picture and you've probably mis-invested an awful lot of resources in the process.

Describe a time when you were a part of a toxic environment - how did you get out of that situation or cope with it until finding something better?

Planet earth in 2019 is a toxic environment. We was once fired from a job We loved and was very good at because even though we put our whole heart and self into the direct work we were doing with clients, we were so disillusioned with the organization that we stopped emotionally investing ourself in participating in the organizational processes that were the source of more negativity than positivity or productivity. In that case, reorganizing our relationship with the job forced a change we had wanted in a manner that we didn't prefer. 

The reason we hadn't left was because we downplayed the impact it was having in order to protect a sense of security that we didn't actually feel. Since then, every time we've been in a particularly toxic job, or relationship, or organization, both coping and moving beyond it started with acknowledging exactly the degree to which it was toxic for us and in what particular manner without making excuses for it or trying to downplay it. If we felt that we couldn't leave the situation, we did every thing in our power to reorganize our relationship with it to feel more authentic or positive or secure. 

Since then we've had another job with processes that were toxic for us. That time, though, we didn't hesitate to be honest with ourself that the degree of toxicity wasn't something we could sustain and still be well. We set a plan to leave the job because it was what was right for us even though we didn't know what was going to happen next. We updated linkedin to represent ourself more authentically and only looked for work that we felt strongly was going to be a good alignment for us and tried not to make excuses for why it wasn't or shouldn't be obtainable for us. We ended up being recruited for the first time in our life by Linode, in an industry we had little experience with, because they appreciated our authentic self as much as we do and continue to do so. We've been thriving at Linode since.

How can companies deal with conflict in a healthy way without morale being affected? How do you deal with conflict or misunderstanding?

This is something that we continue to develop resources and perspectives to try and improve. Conflict ultimately comes down to relationships, between people, between organizations, between systems, etc. Develoiping a functional methodology If you take a trauma informed approach to conflict that focuses on the problem at hand and the forces informing it with the goal of repairing the relationship in the pursuit of restorative justice, you can find a myriad of ways to resolve or reduce conflict while minimizing harm in the process. If a lot of that is stuff you haven't heard before or don't know how it might apply to your business or your situation, educate yourself, get some perspective from others, and reorganize your existing resources to try and do so.

What are some mistakes you see companies make when it comes to building the team and company culture?

Trying to change people first in an effort to do so, as well as expecting a change in teams and cultures to cause direct and tangible change in people. It doesn't work like that. First you have to engage, empathize with, and appreciate your people as they already are and figure out why the team or culture isn't working in their best interest. Then you have to collaborate with them to figure out how to educate, reorganize and reinvest resources in a manner that improves their experience and helps them meet their needs and goals in the process of pursuing organizational goals. Healthy thriving cultures is the byproduct of this process and teams thrive inside those cultures.

What are things that companies can do to better understand and retain millennial talent?

They can stop chunking us together, labeling us, and then making assumptions that inform how they attempt to retain us. If you want to understand someone or a group of someone's, talk to them. We are subjects, not objects. If you don't have the resources to ask enough of us to inform yourself, then use data driven perspectives about what how we actually behave and what we actually say that we want. Avoid third party opinions that attempt to characterize behavioral data and theorize reasons for it instead of just presenting it. Empower the people in your organization already to enter feedback loops about the organization so that you are creating environments in which they can thrive before you try bringing in new people who you can't offer a thriving environment to. Promote and Pay them to do so.

What is an example of a toxic work environment for you?

One where we aren't safe and encouraged to be our authentic self (like making no attempts to use the correct pronouns, or receiving backlash for gender presentation that's in alignment with the dress code, or having noone we can see ourselves in leading and thriving already ). Where the systems and processes are at odds with our wellness ( like requiring overtime compared to offering overtime, or micromanaging minutes and bowel movements, or worrying that being honest about a lack of wellness puts our employment at risk).

How important is work-life balance for you? What is your ideal set up?

Our ideal set up is a job that is so fulfilling and meaningful that we would do it even if we had a guaranteed income, food and shelter otherwise, that pays well enough that we don't need to do more jobs in order to thrive financially, whie still having enough time outside of work that we can engage in every thing else that we need to be fulfilled and self actualized that work can't provide. We are not quite there yet but we've certainly gotten much closer over time.

What are some ways you both support members of your teams?

We've developed a reputation at work and in life as a Feedback Friend. We do a lot of listening and a provide a lot of perspective through nonjudgemental, open ended questions to try and identify pain points and opportunities for improvement. It's essentially motivational interviewing utilized in all conversations. Then we advocate for those improvements at a systemic and policy level, especially when there is a pattern among a number of people. This developed into doing a lot of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion advocacy and organizing at Linode and is something we're looking to continue developing in the entirety of our life.

Stay in touch with us on Linkedin, Twitter, and more recently, Reddit to let us know if this was helpful. If you see us out in the world, feel free to say hello and let us know if this article was helpful to you also. Who knows, we might become friends!