Building a culture

We are going through one of the most exciting phases in our company. We can see a company culture taking shape. And all of us in our three year old company are driving this.

I searched the web for a good definition of culture  and found this - a set of learned beliefs, values and behaviors the way of life shared by the members of a society. We as a company would qualify almost as a semi-virtual company -- we have around 40 member team in India, just one member in Germany and 7 members in US. Other than for the Indian office, team members are working in "ones" and "twos". And yet, we share the vision - the values - the enthusiasm - the beliefs.I was discussing this today with two of my US colleagues and we were almost surprised ourselves how a young company like was operating with a shared purpose and how each one "felt really good starting work each day, even though we might be just talking to each other over phone maybe once a day".  We never went about raving and ranting about our culture (honestly, we did not really get time to think much about "culture" till today's discussion). It just happened.

In my opinion some of the factors that are driving this are (and I do not, by any stretch of imagination, can call myself knowledgeable in this aspect) - a) the people - the company values resonated with the people who joined us -- they were in sync with their personal values - they were able to identify themselves with the Company  b) the vision - members of the team were in total alignment with the company's vision - the core purpose and the core values - for anyone who joined us these were relevant - they were meaningful - everyone knew where they were going - it was a journey each one wanted to undertake  c) communication - when we had ideas we communicated, when we wanted to share something - personal or professional - we communicated, when we were "on top of the world" we communicated, when we were feeling low we communicated... and we bonded with each other . The best part was that there was no superficiality in our communication - it was all straight and honest  d) being a part of the rapid organizational evolution - every one could see the company grow - and they felt proud that they were contributing to this evolution e) finally, and most importantly we were all having a good time working together - we knew we could depend on each other - we knew that we could just pick up the phone or walk up to anyone and share our thoughts and get "listened to"

I consider myself to be extremely lucky to be a part of this wonderful journey. I had heard about the "aha" moments in an entrepreneur's life, clearly I am living many of those moments now.

- Udayan Bose   

Comments

[ahugatarbus]

I frequently try to connect to your blog during my lunch hour. Was unable to for quite a long while. Glad to see you are keeping up the entries. You are an inspiration for us all.

[ahugatarbus]

I frequently try to connect to your blog during my lunch hour. Was unable to for quite a long while. Glad to see you are keeping up the entries. You are an inspiration for us all.

[Rajesh Kumar]

Hey Udayan,

I was just browsing and i came through your blog. I too was in Kumaon House (1997 - 2001 )and I think we left it in a better state, then you mentioned :)). Would like to connect with you sometime.

Rajesh