Culture 1.0: How We Behaved at Synauta, When No One Was Looking

A thriving culture fosters collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement. It aligns the actions of employees with the company’s mission, creating an environment where individuals can grow personally and professionally. 🌱

When Peter Drucker famously said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” he was emphasizing the paramount importance of a company’s culture in driving success. No matter how brilliant the strategy is, without the right culture to support it, execution will falter. ❌

A well-established culture builds trust, encourages feedback, and ensures all team members are working towards the same goals. ✅

The Foundation of Culture 1.0 🏗️

Before starting Synauta, Kristy and I spoke about what was great about the companies we had previously worked for and what—well—sucked. We still have the piece of paper where we jotted down notes from our conversation. 📝

When we started Synauta, from Day 1, we implemented this culture of ours (what I call Culture 1.0). While a lot of the culture was largely built by myself, Kristy, and our first employee, Justin (thanks, Justin! 🙌), over time, it grew and strengthened.

As each new team member started, I had a personal 1:1 with them and talked them through our culture, making sure they knew what was OK and what was not OK. I asked every new team member to help us build this great culture.

Most people loved the culture we built together. Many team members told Kristy and me, again and again, how much they loved working at Synauta. Occasionally, someone would miss the point of how our culture worked and moved on—that’s OK. 🤷‍♂️ It’s not for everyone. Some left but later realized their mistake and asked to come back. What was clearly obvious was that when someone wasn’t a cultural fit, it sucked the team’s energy and things stopped getting done effectively. This experience made me far more likely to take action sooner to protect the culture when things turned toxic. 🚨

Learning from Others 📚

After putting together our Culture Deck—our philosophy on how we wanted things to work—we realized we were not alone. I came across Netflix’s Culture Deck, which was relatively similar.

Netflix’s culture emphasizes freedom and responsibility, promoting innovation, transparency, and accountability. Employees are encouraged to take risks, challenge the status quo, and make decisions quickly. There’s a strong focus on high performance, candid feedback, and cultural fit, with a commitment to continuous improvement and maintaining a high level of trust.

We found other companies like this too. 37 Signals (creators of Basecamp and Ruby on Rails) is a strong advocate of freedom and responsibility. Even Google has some cultural elements similar to Netflix. 🌍

How We Explained Our Culture to Every New Employee 👇

🎯 Vision & Mission

  • We were very clear. Simple and effective.
  • The vision and mission never changed, and everyone was asked how they personally felt about them.
  • Some employees knew them by heart. ❤️

🌎 World-Leading Culture

  • Our culture defined how we worked together and maintained consistency.
  • Culture was defined by what we did, even when no one was looking. 👀
  • Leadership played a key role in shaping and maintaining the culture, so we focused on this with a Culture Moment (like a safety moment) every Monday at 9 AM. ⏰

🤝 Respect & Candor

  • We valued teammates as people, respected their expertise, and maintained open, direct communication.
  • Candor was key. Internal discussions about progress, direction, and culture were encouraged. Discord was OK internally, but externally, we kept key messages consistent. 🔑

🔥 Work Ethic & Accountability

  • We valued hard work, adaptability, and clear communication, especially regarding company challenges.
  • Everyone clearly understood their role and responsibilities. 🎯
  • We made room for fun during less intense times.
  • We realized you can’t sprint all the time, so we recognized end-of-project cadences where it was appropriate to relax (somewhat) with teammates. 🏖️
  • Every six months, we had a retreat to meet up personally (we were 100% remote) and made sure it was both productive and fun. One time, we even went to Disneyland! 🎢

🚫 No Tolerance for Toxicity

  • Brilliant jerks were not tolerated. Respect for culture and teammates was paramount. ❌

💡 Empowerment & Resourcefulness

  • We always acted in the company’s best interest. 💯
  • We used a think big approach and used resources efficiently, without needing strict policies. 🔍
  • We spent a lot of time on personal development. Our team members often needed to retrain in new skills, as for a while, we only had six people who had to do everything. 🔄

🏆 Cultural Integrity

  • Our culture set the standard.
  • We actively questioned actions or behavior that didn’t align with the culture—including questioning leadership. 🎙️

🔄 Development of Culture

  • Feedback was encouraged on how the culture aligned with personal and organizational values. 🗣️
  • Every second Friday, we had a Retro Meeting for every team, where we asked three simple questions:
    1. What went great over the last two weeks? ✅
    2. What sucked? ❌
    3. What’s still a challenge? 🔄
  • We made sure we were all open to feedback and suggestions. We listened, tried our best to understand each other, and made real changes based on those discussions. 🎧

🏝️ Me-Days

  • Employees were granted one Me-Day per month for personal time.
  • They were expected not to take any Me-Days when important deadlines loomed. 🚦

In Summary ✨

We asked people to behave like adults, not children. When Performance Appraisal time came each year, we could see who was behaving like an adult, making appraisals fairly simple due to our clear framework for culture. 🎯

Synauta’s culture was built on the foundation of clarity, respect, and continuous improvement. We learned from the experiences of others and refined our own approach to foster a productive, empowering, and enjoyable environment for our team. 🏆

By prioritizing cultural alignment and feedback, we not only strengthened our internal bonds but ensured we remained on track with our mission. 🚀

While every company’s culture will look different, embracing transparency, accountability, and a shared vision can guide any organization toward long-term success. 🔥