Environment. Leadership. Codes of conduct. These are elements of company culture. For startups and corporations alike, ethos can dramatically influence how well an organization innovates. We collected some simple but powerful ideas from earlier interviews with Chicago executives on how to build and protect culture at various stages of a company.
* Cameron Smith, co-founder and CEO of the new Bennett Day School in the West Loop on why it’s bringing principles of the lean startup to the school environment:
If you were at any entrepreneurial ecosystem around town, failing fast or iterating is key, and that’s how students (will) think and learn at Bennett Day School. It’s part and parcel to being a successful startup. You shouldn’t have to wait 20 years to learn to iterate, fail and recalibrate.
* Rishi Shah, co-founder and CEO of health content firm ContextMedia Inc., on how his partnership with co-founder Shradha Agarwal shapes their startup’s culture:
We have each other’s back. I’m not interested more in my success than her success, and that matters. People see that, so they are like that with each other. We often come at the same problem with different perspectives, but we’re aligned on goals. We care about building a culture where people are excited to come to work. It’s as important to us as any financial goal.
* Tierney Remick, Chicago-based president of executive search giant Korn Ferry International’s consumer marketing practice, on whether a company is ready for innovation:
Do you need to create a safe place within the organization for new ideas that can be evolved, funded and researched? Does the organization embrace people that think, express themselves and come to conclusions differently? How comfortable is the culture toward having very different mindsets coexisting? Do you have a plan? You have to have a reason for innovation and measurement stakes that tell you whether you’re moving down a path toward success, or it’s going to be a failure.
* Jack Keenan, managing director of Chicago-based commercial real estate firm JLL Inc., on considering culture as startups expand into new space:
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I’ve seen young companies spend way too much money on their space because they wanted to project a certain type of image. But when they were the happiest and most creative, they were in an old loft someplace sweating it out working in less-than-ideal conditions and furniture, but they were in the trenches fighting. So you need your space ultimately to fit the mentality and culture of what you do.
* Desiree Rogers, CEO of Johnson Publishing Co., which owns the Ebony and Jet magazine brands and Fashion Fair Cosmetics, on leading through change:
Transitions require patience. People need to feel that the leader knows directionally where we’re going. It’s not what was done before, so every day that you can stay on that same path and build that next brick going forward, the more buy-in, the more understanding, the more people will come together and start thinking about ideas to build the next brick together. That’s where you get the momentum, and I think in 2014 that’s where we are.
* Thomas Parkinson, co-founder, CTO and senior VP of Skokie-based grocery delivery company Peapod, on building a Chicago “Propulsion Lab” for its technical team:
It’s about getting all the technical people away from the slightly more bureaucratic scene. I’m trying to get it like the early days where things moved really quickly and give more independence to the group. I walk in there and I feel like I’m at the old Peapod.
Q&As are edited for length and clarity.