Lessons from a career in technology - Part Two

Culture Matters

One of the biggest career mistakes you can make is to keep working in a toxic culture. Yet culture is something that’s hard to assess and difficult to uncover during an interview. As a result, many people discover, to their dismay, that the company they were excited to join has a horrible culture. In this article I’ll explore the importance of culture, what I’ve learned about it over my career, and how to spot toxic cultures.

What is culture?

Culture is present anywhere people gather. The dictionary definitions of culture that are most apropos in a business context are:

• the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular group of people, as a social, ethnic, professional, or age group (usually used in combination)
• the values, typical practices, and goals of a business or other organization, especially a large corporation

While these are succinct definitions, when you ask employees about their companies’ cultures, they will say things like “the culture is great here”. Yet, if you ask them to be more specific, they’ll mention the people they work with, the benefits, the public perception of the company, and so on. They might not mention the things that are more important, such as whether their opinion is respected, whether the company is invested in their career growth, if there’s a corporate commitment to diversity, or how their manager treats them. Culture’s many dimensions make it difficult to pin down, but you can tell a good culture from a bad one when you’re immersed in it.

When I talk to undergraduates, they often have stars in their eyes about big name companies. They admire companies that are highly successful and are perceived to be innovative leaders in their field. Yet many of those companies have highly toxic cultures with poor work/life balance, punishing performance reviews that are designed to eliminate under-performers rather than helping them grow, or an endless fire-drill approach to every project. Getting a job offer from one of these companies is an achievement because successful candidates will have beaten thousands of other applicants for that golden ticket. They’re not thinking about culture and what it will be like to work there, however.

Some examples

In my career in technology, I’ve been fortunate to have worked for companies with great cultures, but I’ve also had the misfortune to work for companies, teams, and managers who were toxic. I’ll illustrate this with a few brief examples:

I’ll not mention the names of the companies or people, but I’ll focus instead on what made their cultures good or bad. There’s another article I’ll write about what differentiates good managers from bad ones.

One of the tech companies I worked for had a uniquely positive culture. That culture can be summarized in a mantra the CEO adopted that was embraced by all, “to ask permission is to seek denial”. Employees were encouraged, and given free rein, to get things done without seeking management approval. This might sound chaotic, but the company’s mission was clear, and everyone was (usually) aligned around it. The company succeeded in maintaining a scrappy startup culture even when it became a highly successful global enterprise. It bucked the trend of companies becoming more and more bureaucratic as they grow. I built a career at that company, starting out answering phones in tech support and ending up, much to my surprise, working in their research labs. It was quite the journey. One that I’m immensely thankful for to this day.

At the company I mentioned in the introduction, things started out positively. I joined a friendly team of remarkably talented individuals, leaders in their fields. who were surprisingly humble about their skills. It was one of the best teams I’ve ever worked for. I enjoyed getting to know my teammates and mentoring those who were early in their careers. We explored and learned from each other. We took a team selfie where we were all smiles.?

A year later, the culture flipped 180 degrees. The mission of the team was rewritten. Aggressive and increasingly unrealistic deadlines were imposed by the manager. A return to office mandate was instituted for a team that had been successful as a fully distributed remote team. The culture became toxic. Random layoffs followed, with refugees universally expressing gratitude for being freed from a toxic situation. I was similarly relieved to get out. The stress of that environment had taken a mental and physical toll on me.

How do you assess culture?

Forget about the obvious strategy of asking, “What’s the culture like?”

Asking about culture in an interview won’t get you the droid you’re looking for. If the interview team likes you, they’ll be working hard to sell you the job, the team, and company. The picture will be overly rose-tinted. If they’re ambivalent about your candidacy, well, they don’t need to share anything insightful, so you won’t get it either. Answers to the culture question tend to be bland statements such as “we have a collaborative culture”.?

When I interview people, I end the interview by turning the questioning over to the candidate. I tell them, “You can ask me anything about the company and I’ll be completely candid with you.”? I mean it. If they ask me about something that I know sucks, I’ll tell them. It’s my role not only to hire a candidate but to help them make an informed decision about whether they want to work here with me. I don’t think my approach is very common.

So, how do you assess culture? Here are some techniques I’ve developed.

Read between the lines

You can get a sense of the culture by the demeanor of the people you interview with. As a candidate, my approach is friendly and open. I expect interviewers to respond in kind. If I can’t get a smile or a friendly response, that’s a warning sign. My wife had a clay model of a golden nose that she’d pull out mid-interview to see if the candidates would laugh. Guess which ones got the jobs?

At one company I interviewed, the hiring manager, recruiter, and CTO were icy cold. There was no warmth or social engagement, just a transactional experience. When my wife asked me how it went, I summed it up in one word, “frosty”. I got the job, but I should have run away. The gut feel I got from the interview translated directly into the cultural norms of the leadership team. Trust your gut or, if you’re on the fence, ask a trusted friend for their reading on the experience.

Ask the culture question a different way

At another company, I sensed that an offer was already in the bag after the first round of interviews, so when I went back for the more in-depth second round, I asked everyone the same question, “What’s the worst thing about working here?” Everyone had the same answer, “the politics”. I appreciated their candor, but I felt I could handle that issue having been forewarned. I eventually ran into politics as my career progressed higher in the organization. I experienced shockingly Shakespearean politics at the most senior levels. My team and I took that as an affirmation that our mission of asking the difficult questions nobody else dared raise was having an impact on hearts and minds. Hey, you gave us a mandate to challenge the status quo, so don’t complain when we do just that.

Please note that if you’re thinking of using the “worst thing” question, please be more diplomatic than I was. Try something a bit less blunt, such as:

“What’s the most challenging thing about working here and how do you deal with it?”

“If you had free rein as a change agent, what would you do?”

“What gets you excited to come to work?” (then ask the follow-up, “What doesn’t?”)

Research current and former employees

Most companies do background checks of candidates they’re planning to hire. It’s basic HR due diligence to ensure the person really is who they say they are. So, it’s only fair to do the same about the people you’re considering working with. This doesn't mean being creepy and looking for criminal records, or where they live, or their political affiliation etc. It means learning more about them professionally. Their LinkedIn profile can tell you a lot.

Review their career journey and experience. Read articles they’ve published and see what they’re posting about and commenting on. Are they positive and enthusiastic about their company and their job or are they all business all the time? This will give you a more complete picture of the person beyond the job title and it will give you topics to discuss in the interview. Beware of minimal profiles or people who never post about their company or work. Some companies prohibit employees from posting on LinkedIn or social platforms. If having a professional presence is important to you, then such a policy might be a cultural red flag.

Look at how long they stay in a job. For example, I noticed that one hiring manager was a 2-year guy; he only stayed in each job for 2 years. When I interviewed, he was 1.5 years into the job, so I knew he would leave in another 6 months. Sure enough, right on schedule, he left. As soon as I started that job, I built a good relationship with his manager so I wouldn’t be orphaned. Rapid turnover could be an indicator of a toxic culture. In this example, it was a symptom of an insightful person and a free radical by nature. He could see how to positively disrupt an organization but didn’t have the patience to see it through.

On LinkedIn, search for former employees of the company you're evaluating. Ideally, narrow your search to people who had the same or similar job to the one you're considering. Since culture can vary by group or organization, you want to get a sense of the organization where you might work. Look for patterns in their employment. How long did they stay at that company in that role? Did they get promoted? Rapid short duration employment patterns could be a sign of a toxic culture. Consider reaching out to those former employees with a question such as "I'm considering a position as an X at company Y. I'd be interested in hearing your perspective on what it's like to work there. Would you be available for a brief conversation?" You'll get a more unvarnished perspective from former employees than you will from current ones.

Another useful perspective is to see if any of the interview team has had a meaningful career progression at the company. If you see a consistent pattern of people advancing at the company, that gives you a good sense that the company is invested in employee development and that career growth is possible. Surprisingly, that’s not a given at every company, where the only way to get ahead is to get out.

Look at what the company’s C-level executives are saying in interviews. Are they issuing mandates, such a return to office policy? That speaks to a culture of command and control rather than one of trust and enablement. In the former culture, you’ll be required to follow the rules. The existence of a single mandate suggests there will be further constraints on employees.

Help! I’m in a toxic culture, what can I do?

Get out. That’s easy to say, but much harder to do. I know this because a few times in my career I’ve found myself in a toxic environment. I either didn’t know it because the level of toxicity increased so slowly I became accustomed to it, or I did know it but I felt trapped because of concerns over finding another job.?

Whatever you do, don’t be complacent and resign yourself to working in a toxic culture. You owe it to yourself to find a way out. Here are some strategies:

In my previous article I discussed the importance of Always be Looking . The first step to escaping a cultural nightmare is to ramp up your job search and start interviewing. It’s far better to search for a job when you have a job. If you’ve been unemployed for a while it can be tempting to accept the first offer that you get, but don’t shortcut the cultural analysis. You might decide to suck it up and deal with the cultural issue for the sake of a paycheck. Only you can make that choice but continue your search while you’re in that placeholder job.

Culture can be specific to a manager, a team, an organization or business unit, or an entire company. One exit strategy you can adopt is to find a better place within the same company. I’ve had several roles in smaller satellite teams that had uniquely positive cultures because they were isolated from the bureaucracy and politics of the larger enterprise. In your job search, include those internal organizations, unless of course the entire company culture is toxic.

It might be tempting to believe that toxicity is a passing phase due to a current bad manager, but in my experience toxic cultures never improve and bad managers tend to persist. Unfortunately, good cultures can devolve into toxic ones surprisingly quickly. That’s generally a one-way trip.

Toxicity is toxic

You deserve better than to work in a toxic culture. You don’t have to put up with it. Surviving won’t win you any endurance medals either. Toxicity at work can infiltrate your personal life where stress and frustrations surface at home. Don’t let this happen to you.

While all companies have problems, know that there are places with positive cultures where employees and managers work together in partnership, career growth is encouraged, and new ideas are welcome. Work occupies most of your waking hours, choose to make those hours joyful by seeking positive cultures. Your quality of life will improve, as will your mental and physical health.

And, finally, if you’re building a company, or are in a leadership position, you have the power to create a positive culture. You should make it so.?