Work Culture and Damn, It’s Hard

• Post By: Greg Crumpton
• Date: December 11, 2019
• Category: Blog
• Tags: #LifeLongLearning, #WorkCulture, GregCrumpton

What an interesting and thought provoking topic.

Over the last month or so I have been really digging into, learning about and analyzing some of the cultures that I am, have been and want to continue to be a part of. Reading from Ben Horowitz’s latest book entitled, What You Do Is Who You Are really got my noodle engaged and wheels spinning.

Family-oriented, strictly business, a blend of both, hostile, overly laid-back, etc., I feel fortunate enough to have worked in many of these environments over the years. Having stacked up nearly four decades of experiences, it has been fascinating to step back, obviously with a much better understanding of the uniqueness of each setting, and recount them. What worked very well, what didn’t work at all and what was middle-of-the-road.

Having reflected on many situations, conversations and doing a lot of watching my “bosses”, I find that I personally like a solid familial feeling, but with high degrees of competency and professionalism mixed in. Looking back, I think that it is also the most difficult to achieve and maintain for a long period. Having to be able to look people in the eye, as you would your closest family and friends, then delivering to them a dose of business news or business information that may not be pleasant is tough. It requires an ever maturing relationship to be able to pull that off successfully, especially over the long run.

To me, the strictly business deal just wasn’t my gig. You went to work, basically punched in and then after 8 hours or so, you punched out Not necessarily physically punching in and out, but really mentally, as that was just the culture and therefore the attitudes of most folks there.

The family-only minded model was tough as well. It just about 100% circled around what “felt good” and not what was good for the long-term success of the team or the business overall. That business has subsequently shutdown, perhaps as a result of the short-term, feel-good only ability to nurture folks.

Of the examples, the one that I most enjoy(ed) working in was the hybrid model. Yes, you could hug and feel good about many things, but you/we were and are still are expected to get work done like crazy. The hard work with the feeling that someone has your six covered is a great spot, for me anyway.

Now, moving on to, “Damn, it’s hard.”

A young friend of mine and her sister recently attended a workshop in Charleston, SC called “Rise”. It was hosted and organized by The Hollis Company and lady named Rachel Hollis. You may have heard of her via her authorship of a couple of books, one in particular called, Girl, Wash Your Face and a newer piece entitled, Girl, Stop Apologizing.

As part of the video recording that I watched of the event, Rachel was delivering her Top 5 things that one should be cognizant of and/or do to become a better leader. The five are: Humility, Hard Work, Health, Honesty and Optimism. I thought that was a pretty tight list, but how many company cultures enlist all 5 of these “must-haves” as they develop their culture. Many, many companies have some, a few, most of them … I’ll bet a hundred bucks there are very few, once you drill down that implement them all. A great goal, none-the-less and I know several that are well on their way. But the Hard-Work, coupled with all the others really spoke to my “grind-it-out mentality.

Ok, you may ask, “What does Rachel Hollis have to do with culture in a broader sense?”. Well, as I was spending time thinking about this video I watched, coupled with the reading of Horowitz’s book mentioned above, a couple of things hit me.

First, the story told of Genghis Kahn within the book really got me thinking about inclusiveness. When Genghis and his band of Mongols rolled into a town or area, they didn’t dictate how things were done, they used what was working for the people in the area. If the local farrier was shoeing horses a certain way or if the bread-maker was baking a certain recipe, the Genghis led clan adopted the better method. They were not so dictatorial that they felt it was their way or the highway. By the way, their way was usually you “losing your head”, no pun intended. The intentional use of the tribal knowledge worked, and he went on to conquer a landmass the size of Africa with an Army of only 100,000. That speaks highly, to me anyway, of a highly collaborative effort. Hard work coupled with the culture.

Now, back to culture and summarizing the thoughts on “It’s hard”.

During all this time of noodling about what I had read, watched and thought about, I had a call with a co-worker. She and I were discussing a couple of things and one thing was indeed “hard”. It stems from the uniqueness of what she does every day, down to the places that we perform these functions and then the added degree of excellence that is required to execute at the very high level that she chooses to operate.

The result from the conversation was, “It’s hard”, BUT that is exactly why customers seek out people like us who work at places like we do. We get stuff done.

Yes, it’s hard, it’s always going to be hard, in fact, I believe it is supposed to be hard. That’s why we get paid to deliver. And that is why so many people who operate at high levels need to be cognizant of the culture in which they choose to work. If it were easy, everyone could deliver this often-sought-out service and the attitude of “yes” we deliver. But they don’t, because it’s hard.

My desire is that you can read these words, then think about the tone and culture you are building. We are either building up or tearing down our organizations, and families for that matter, daily, maybe even hourly based upon a simple notion, “What we do is who we are”.

Until next time, stay redoubtable.