Get Reworked Podcast: How to Intentionally Design Corporate Culture
In this episode of Get Reworked, Udemy chief learning officer Melissa Daimler discusses what an intentional approach to building culture looks like and why it benefits organizations — and employees — in the long-run.
Listen: Get Reworked Full Episode List
"So many people that I have talked to throughout my career have said, 'Why are you getting in the way of culture just happening organically?' And my response to that is, it is happening already, whether by design or default, so we might as well design it, and be more explicit about things that we want to see and things that we don't want to have be part of our culture," said Melissa.
Highlights of the conversation include:
- How to define culture.
- The strong relationship between learning and development and culture.
- Why businesses need to reassess culture on an ongoing basis.
- What it takes to turn a toxic culture around.
- How to make culture work in the hybrid workplace.
Plus, host Siobhan Fagan talks with Melissa about Twitter now vs. Twitter 10 years ago, what employees can do to help shape culture and why vibes alone aren't enough to create a corporate culture. Listen in for more.
Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Send it to [email protected].
Tune-in Here
 |
 |
 |
Show Notes
- Melissa on LinkedIn
- Melissa's website
- Melissa's book: "ReCulturing: Design Your Company Culture to Connect with Strategy and Purpose for Lasting Success"
Episode Transcript
Note: This transcript has been edited for space and clarity
Melissa Daimler: We have such a huge opportunity, not only as HR leaders, but as any leader and organization now, and every employee as well, to redefine what work is and how we want to create this playbook for this next phase of work.
We need to figure this out together and make sure that whether you're working at home or working in the office, we're leveraging tools and practices that help everybody be effective.
Siobhan Fagan: You just heard from Melissa Daimler. Melissa is the chief learning officer of online learning and teaching marketplace Udemy, where she's helping the company evolve their platform and approach to learning.
She's also helping its global workforce redesign how they think about culture and work. And culture is why we brought Melissa here today. She published a book in 2022, "ReCulturing: Design Your Company Culture to Connect with Strategy and Purpose for Lasting Success." And we wanted to bring her on to talk about how companies can intentionally create their own corporate culture.
She previously led advisory and coaching company, Daimler Partners, led HR for a fast growing venture funded startup, and created and built learning and organizational development functions for Adobe, Twitter and WeWork, so she is bringing a rich background to this conversation. I for one can't wait to bring her on. Let's Get Reworked.
Welcome to the podcast, Melissa.
Melissa: Thanks, Siobhan. It's great to be here.
Defining Culture: Behaviors, Practices and Processes
Siobhan: I am very excited to have you here. We've been actually in communication with you for a while, in part, because you came out with a book in May, which is called "ReCulturing: Design Your Company Culture to Connect with Strategy and Purpose for Lasting Success." So we wanted to talk a little bit about corporate culture, but also how it intersects with your current role at Udemy.
So let's just start by setting a baseline. How do you define culture?
Melissa: So I define culture in three parts. It's very simply behaviors, practices and processes. And I came up with that in doing research on my book, I was looking at so many articles and books on culture throughout my career and was dissatisfied with some of the definitions that are already out there.
So things like it's the organization's personality, it's what happens when the boss leaves the room. It's what makes people happy. And even worse, it's the ping pong tables, it's the happy hours, it's the free food.
And my experience over and throughout my career has been that you can have agency with regard to culture, that both leaders and employees can design an intentional culture, and I experienced it myself in my career. And I got the opportunity to experience what happens when companies and leaders are unwilling to do that.
So I realized that it goes beyond just values. But it's a way to codify your organization, so that you understand how to work with each other. So very simply, culture is how people work with each other. And the behaviors that are coming from the values need to be integrated into all of those people processes that we know in our employee lifecycle.
So hiring, onboarding, development, even off-boarding behaviors that you've defined, should show up in each of those processes. And then in your daily practices, like meetings and communication and connecting. There's also opportunity to reinforce those behaviors that you've created in the organization.
Siobhan: So I love that you're not giving businesses a pass by just you know, getting by on vibes, their culture, you know, like, hey, it's just, it's just how we feel.
Melissa: Yeah.
Siobhan: We're going to touch on some of your background and some of the lessons that you learned from your previous roles, but I'm hoping that you can talk a little bit about what it is that culture provides because I do think I love that you define it this way. I love that you break it down into pieces where people can take action on actually intentionally shaping it.
What's the danger of allowing it to just kind of coast by and rely on it producing organically?
Melissa: It is interesting, because I think, to your point, so many people that I have talked to, throughout my career have said, 'Why are you getting in the way of culture just happening organically?' And my response to that is, it is happening already, whether by design or default, so we might as well design it, and be more explicit about things that we want to see and things that we don't want to have be part of our culture.
So I think that it is really important, and earlier the better. I get questions like that often to have, hey, should we wait until the company is at a certain size, like 500 to 1,000 employees. And I think as soon as you start to build a company, again, your culture is already happening, I think it's really important that you define those behaviors and those expectations of each other as early as possible.
How an Organization Can Embed Culture in Behavior
Siobhan: I want to dig into these three different facets that you raise, which is how you define culture: the behaviors, the practices and the processes. And I was hoping that you could just give a specific example of how an organization, and we'll start with behaviors, how they can embed their culture in the behavior.
Melissa: I think that I'll give you kind of an example of two companies that I was working with, just to explain the importance of behavior. And it was two companies that were both focused on this value of innovation. And that's pretty common in a lot of organizations. And one of the things I talk about with regard to behaviors is that they are both foundational and aspirational. Some people argue with that and think that they should only be foundational, what you already see in the organization. But in my experience, a mix of both, is a nice way for people to kind of close some of those gaps that they see in the organization today.
So one company wanted to move quicker in terms of innovating and getting ideas out there. The other company I was working with wanted to slow it down. And they felt like they are being innovative, but they were spending too much money and resources in ideas that weren't really fully baked yet. And they wanted to put in more processes before any ideas kind of went forward.
So one of the behaviors that we created for the company that wanted to slow down their innovative practices, was putting a behavior in that just simply was, we asked each other why. And it was a signal to employees when they were in meetings talking about ideas, when that came up, you know, why are we doing this? You know, why do we want to do this right now? To slow down. And it was just an understanding that that was, again, a signal that they had to think a little differently about whether or not this idea was appropriate at all, or whether we should wait on that idea until we have some more specific pieces in place to do it.
The other company that wanted to go faster, had a behavior around, we make it safe to get to version one. And so it gave employees the opportunity to experiment a little bit more and not wait until the idea was at 100%. They started getting things out there sooner and then iterating. And so that is really the big importance, the big difference between values and behaviors.
So if we take that into one of the processes that we all do, is hiring, you're embedding that particular behavior into the question. And so a question around that behavior of we make it safe to prototype quickly, you would ask a candidate, tell me about a time when you were thinking about an idea and you moved faster on that. Or how do you get things out quickly without having it be absolutely perfect or 100% aligned with what you think it is? How do you do that? And how do you bring a team along to do that? So it's embedded into that hiring process as a behavior.
And then if you look at one of the other processes around feedback or promotion, I think it's really important to embed the those behaviors in to those kind of frameworks as well. So when we're thinking about somebody getting feedback, we're looking at their performance, but we're also looking at those specific behaviors and how those are showing up in their day to day work.
And then the practices piece. Again, this is all about meetings big and small. So organizational, all hands or one-on-ones, you have team meetings, are there opportunities where you can reinforce some of the behaviors. And so again, pulling this behavior around innovation through sharing stories with the organization about how we got ideas out there faster. What is it that we did differently? What did we learn from that?
And then from even a development standpoint, I have loved you know, two aspects of my career that I've really focused around, is culture and learning. And you can't re-culture, you can't build culture without learning, new ways of working. And so one of the things that I also encourage companies to do is to take those behaviors, and then figure out how we can help employees reinforce those.
So in the case of this one company who wanted to go faster, they were teaching employees skills around design thinking, and how to do a post-mortem, so that we can very quickly understand again, what worked, what didn't work, what did we learn?
So again, it's full circle in all of those different places that we have opportunities to reinforce behaviors, that is creating culture in each of those aspects.
Culture Is a Verb: Always in Motion and Evolving
Siobhan: One of the things that struck me when I was reading your book is that you were talking about how first you called culture a verb, not a noun, which I loved. And part of that implication is that it is always in motion, it's always evolving and needs to evolve with an organization.
So I'm thinking of these organizations that you're talking about, and they're clearly pushing to move forward. How can you evolve culture with an organization without losing the essence of the organization?
Melissa: Yeah, I think there's an opportunity to evolve culture and keep exactly what you said, keep the essence of of what makes that culture great. You don't have to change everything, either. I mean, I think the opportunity is to review your culture on a regular basis. And there are companies who have said, you know, what our behaviors are fine. Like, we still think that this is who we are, but we do need to look at our processes and practices. You know, I don't know if some of our behaviors are as embedded as we need them to be. I don't know if the practices that we're doing are exemplifying those behaviors as much.
So it's not to say that reculturing is about changing everything, especially as you said, with the companies that maybe already have values.
I was just talking to Walmart the other day, and they've been around for 60 years, and have had the same values from when Sam Walton created them. And they've continued to look at their behaviors throughout those 60 years, and more importantly, looking at how their processes and practices have to evolve with those values.
So again, I think part of looking at your culture is understanding what does remain, and what do we need to change?
Learning Is the Essential Element to Reculturing
Siobhan: I love also in the book, there's another part, and you touched on it a little bit already about learning, and you call learning the essential element in reculturing. Can you go a little bit deeper? And can you share an example of the relationship between learning and the culture, how would that look like in practice?
Melissa: Sure. One of the frustrations I had earlier in my career is that it wasn't clear on all of the pieces that as an employee, we were told to do, so I was around when we had these very thick competency binders. You know, it took us two years to create the competencies for the organization. And then at that 2-year mark, we had to change them because it was time to change them. And then we had values, and then we had leadership principles. And then we had training programs that we would send people to that were reinforcing skills that were completely different than what we said the values were all about. And so I think, learning skills and and having employees be motivated to learn those skills happens much easier when you know you're going to be rewarded for those skills and promoted for those skills. And ultimately, you're just going to become a better employee and better human when you develop those skills.
And so an example I can give you is at Udemy, no surprise, one of our values is always learning. And we're in the middle of reculturing ourselves and decided that one of the behaviors of always learning is we engage in constructive debate, because we realize that having different points of view and making sure that we have diversity of thought in conversation, that actually creates such great opportunities for learning.
Yet, if we look at our organization, and our employees, a lot of them don't have the skills to constructively debate. And some of them are even nervous to debate. And so we're building out learning experiences in which employees can learn that skill of how to constructively debate each other. And so that skill directly reinforces a behavior that we have said is an important part of our culture.
So I'm a big believer that learning and development needs to directly tie to the culture of the company, and even the the strategy.
At Adobe when we were evolving in moving into different businesses and acquiring different companies, there was a huge focus just on you know, business acumen, why are we doing what we're doing? And how are we thinking about companies we're acquiring? And how do we make sure that as we move into the business of Software-as-a-Service, we understand what that means.
So I just think there's such an opportunity for us to connect learning and development much more closely to how we work every day than what a lot of companies are doing.
Siobhan: I love that approach. And I love that it becomes this virtuous cycle where before, it's this sort of isolated checkbox exercise, like, oh, we've done our mandatory risk training on this platform or that platform, as opposed to this is just part of work every day, and this has to be part of the bigger picture. And it's not something that you should struggle to find time for on a daily basis.
Melissa: Yeah, I mean, I, that's what I talk about with regard to culture too, that when I have people pushing back saying, really, do we need to do this initiative. It's just one more thing. And ultimately, to your point, developing behaviors and integrating them into your processes and practices, and tying skills to those, ideally, is helping us all become more effective. It's not one more thing to do.
Turning Toxic Cultures Around
Siobhan: Yeah, no, absolutely.
Learning Opportunities
So you sort of gave me a segue, which I hope you don't mind my taking with you're engaging in constructive debate.
We had mentioned earlier that you have worked, obviously, you've had a long career. And part of your career, and I know you've discussed this before is that you were at WeWork building the learning and organizational development functions. And then after that, you've also been at Twitter.
So I'm hoping that we could talk a little bit about turning toxic work cultures around when it comes from the top. Obviously, in Twitter, you were there at a much different time period than what we're seeing currently. At WeWork you were there in the midst of it. So can you talk a little bit about that?
Melissa: Sure. It is interesting. I think both companies, I think it reinforces what we're talking about here. I think if you don't continue to focus on culture, things start falling apart.
I was at Twitter early on, I think the Twitter that I was at is no longer there. I think that went away. When I was there, we were definitely focused on both strategy and culture, very much committed to doing everything that we just talked about, you know, incorporating behaviors and skills into the everyday work. I think that what's happening today is unfortunate. And I do believe that businesses have to make hard decisions, and I've been through quite a few layoffs. But I think it goes back again to that what and how, so strategically, what we need to do is clear, but how we do it is in our control as well. And I think that I've experienced that you can do layoffs in a very respectful way, you can make changes in an organization, bringing people along.
I remember, at Adobe, we had a pretty major layoff. And I was in the elevator with Bruce Chizen, he was the CEO at the time, and there was an employee in the elevator, literally holding a box in his hand, and looking up at Bruce and saying, thank you for treating me with respect, even until the end. That really stuck with me throughout my entire career. And the way you onboard and off board people makes a huge difference.
So I think what we have today at Twitter is a leader who likes to be provocative, and unfortunately, I talk a lot about systems in my book too, and the system around him, isn't pushing back in a way that I think is necessary to kind of balance out that power.
I would say the same thing with WeWork. You know, it's fun to have a Hulu documentary and a movie and two books on Adam Neumann, but the company did not fall because of one man, it fell because of a system that had a lot of cracks in it, there was a very junior leadership team. It wasn't diverse, you know, the board didn't always push back, you had a company that was investing in wave pools, you know, so got away from its core strategy of co-working spaces, WeWork actually had some really great values. And what I was working on for the year that I was there is trying to codify and make those values come to life through behaviors. But I'm one person too, and when you're kind of going up against a system that already has quite a bit of momentum, in some practices and processes that don't reinforce a healthy culture, it's challenging.
Employees Have Power to Impact Culture, But it Has to Start With Leadership
Siobhan: Yeah, I was actually curious how much, and even if it's not the CEO, like what about rank and file employees, how much impact an individual can have on a culture, either for the good or for the bad?
Melissa: I mean, one of the reasons I wrote this book is because I do think that employees have more power than they realize, if nothing else to question, you know, ask questions, you know, hey, I saw that one of our values is together, you know, how does that show up? You know, how would I know if I'm being that value? If my manager's being that value? How are we reinforcing this? How are we measuring this? So I think as an employee, even starting with questions, is a good place to start.
And I do think that while culture is co-created, it obviously needs to start with the leadership. So if you don't have a leadership that believes in a healthy culture, and is willing to do the work around these behaviors, and looking at these various processes, I think it's challenging to shift.
There's even I would say, a good example with WeWork to was summer camp, you know, that was such a great practice. And to your point, they did not want to lose the essence of what that represented, it was all about bringing together teams and giving opportunities to connect with each other and get to know each other on a personal level. But at 10, 20, 50 employees, that was OK, you know, you could get people together in a backyard and have a barbecue and play some volleyball. But when you're at 5,000 employees, the idea of being in a field an hour and a half outside of London for three nights in teepees is a little scary to some employees. And I think that was such an opportunity to kind of rethink that practice, into perhaps breaking it down into regions, or doing something else to bring team connection to the forefront.
So I just think it's really important that companies continue to look at their practices as well and figure out how to bring that essence of what the original intention was, and know how to scale that practice to a 5,000 person company.
Siobhan: Yeah, don't get too married to how you had done things before. Just keep what the actual goal was with the original effort. That totally makes sense.
Culture Isn't About Location, It's About Intentionality
Siobhan: I actually want to ask you a little bit about a phenomena that we've seen quite a bit of this year, a little bit last year, and that's organizations using culture as the reason why they're calling employees back to office. What do you think of that? Is that something that is legitimate or is that just an excuse?
Melissa: I have so much to say about that.
Siobhan: Jump on in.
Melissa: I would say that a lot of leaders are asking that question, how do we get our culture back? And that is code for how do we get our employees back in the office?
And I think this goes back Siobhan, to the idea that culture only happens at an office, that if we provide, you know, free lunches and sandwiches on Thursday, that that's going to make it worth somebody traveling an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon, even though they could have done their job at home.
So I think we have such a huge opportunity, not only as HR leaders, but as any leader and organization out there, and every employee as well to redefine what work is and how we want to create this playbook for this next phase of work.
And so I think it's dangerous when we're bifurcating, you know, if you come into the office, you're a good employee, and you're reinforcing culture. And if you don't come into the office, you're not such a great employee, and sorry, that you're not experiencing the culture.
I think it's really important that we figure out together what a hybrid workplace and culture can be. And I think it starts with the definition being agnostic to any kind of company. So it doesn't depend on anything that is at an organization. You know, I think those things are great. I'm coming back into the office quite a bit. But those are just complimentary things to what I think culture really is.
Siobhan: Yeah, I think that the whole working from home actually forced the point a little bit about culture, in that you can't just sort of let it happen, and you did have to be more intentional in, in defining and building what your culture is an actively working on a regular basis to create it.
Melissa: Yeah, I totally agree. I think that word intentional, I'm hearing quite a bit, both in terms of making sure people are clear on what it is they're working on. I think we got a little lazy, as we were working in the office like, we could follow up with each other if somebody wasn't quite clear, or if we left a meeting, not really understanding who the decision-maker was or what the next action was.
So I think clarity, and intentionality are so important now, including why you're even coming to the office. So if there's opportunities to be more deliberate about reasons why you're coming back in, so I know for us, my team, Thursdays are a good day for a lot of folks to come into the office, we make sure we have lunch together, meetings that may be a little more contentious, or we know we have to make a number of decisions around, that we'd rather do in person, we'll schedule them on Thursdays. So I think that intentionality extends even to when I need to be in the office and when I don't.
I will say another piece that a lot of teams and leaders are grappling with is in this hybrid context. How do we make it work for everybody, and I heard the other day somebody was talking about the fact that the office should just be used as another tool. And again, not something that's good or bad. But how do we leverage that to do some of the activities that, you know, maybe are just a little easier to do in person.
But we were in a meeting the other day, and we were brainstorming, and there was a brand new whiteboard in the room, new markers, half of us were in the room, so excited to use the whiteboard, the other half of the team was calling in on Zoom virtually, and we realized we can't use the whiteboard, because we didn't have a camera that could have people track what we were doing on the whiteboard. So we had to kind of come back into Miro, the online brainstorming tool, because everybody could use that.
So it's little things like that, that we may have to compromise and work through. But we need to figure this out together and make sure that whether you're working at home or working in the office, we're leveraging tools and practices that help everybody be effective.
Siobhan: Yeah, I love the level of awareness that this has brought though, the fact that you were in the meeting you were all excited. You had the new markers out and then you were like, oh, wait a second. Which which I don't know necessarily was the case as well-intentioned as people were with meetings before this when the random person was working from home.
Melissa: I totally agree.
Siobhan: Oh Melissa I could talk to you much longer I think we need to do a separate podcast about sailing, which comes up throughout your book. And that all ties into your your systems thinking that you approach culture with but I really appreciate you joining me today.
If our audience wants to find out a little bit more about you and follow you online, where is the best place for them to go?
Melissa: So my website, melissadaimler.com, and you can find me on LinkedIn, Melissa Daimler as well.
Siobhan: Excellent. Thank you again, Melissa.
Melissa: Thanks, Siobhan. This was fun.
Siobhan: If you have a suggestion or a topic for a future conversation, I'm all ears. Please drop me a line at [email protected]. Additionally, if you liked what you heard, post a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you may be listening. Please share Get Reworked with anyone you think might benefit from these types of conversations. Find us at reworked.co. And finally, follow us at Get Reworked on Twitter as well. Thank you again for exploring the revolution of work with me, and I'll see you next time.
About the Author
Siobhan is the editor in chief of Reworked, the premier publication covering the r/evolution of work published by Simpler Media Group, Inc. Siobhan leads the site's content strategy, with a focus on the transformation of the workplace.
Featured Research
Research Report
Read Now
eBook
Read Now
Guide
Read Now
Guide
Read Now
Research Report
Read Now
Buyer's Guide
Read Now
Infographic
Read Now
White Paper
Read Now
Related Stories
Smarter Experiences Win — Learn from Today's Leaders
