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Hey Reader 👋🏻

I spoke on a panel at the Zinc community meet-up in London this week - The topic was a good one, one that always get's opinions and emotions going... Culture 👀

Specifically we explored, is hiring for "Culture Fit" an asset or a barrier to success.

At the start of the session the audience completed a live poll with around 90-95% of the audience saying that they believed hiring for culture fit was a an asset. We ran the poll again at the end of the session and the split had definitely shifted a little, with around 35-40% of the audience this time leaning in the direction of a barrier to success.

What do you think?

I was leading the argument for hiring for culture as a barrier to success and here is why.

Not because culture isn't important, but because most organisations idea of what their culture is, is actually an ideological ideal, not a lived reality.

Usually what is described as "culture" is anchored to a set of value bingo buzzwords and platitudes... you know the ones "Integrity, Be Kind, Collaboration, etc etc" 🙄 they really don't mean anything.

All these "values" describe are baseline expectations of human decency. They are table stake values, behaviours and characteristics we would expect from anyone we interact with by choice... they certainly aren't unique to your organisation and they definitely won't drive business performance on their own.

We were asked to give a one-line definition of culture to kick-off the panel, mine was: How we get shit done and how happy we are doing it.

An over simplification of course - some of you may know I can get pretty nerdy about culture and cultural evolution theory - but at the core of my one-liner is the idea that culture is actually about the behaviours that are present, observable, and recurring. The behaviours we allow to persist and the ones we choose to correct. It's also how decisions are made, how communication happens, how work gets done, how people feel whilst doing their work, how wins are celebrated, how failure is tolerated... I could go on.

Culture is also reflective of the moment in time your organisation is currently in. Are you seed stage, VC backed, PE backed, Bootstrapped etc what challenges is your business actually facing right now, what problems need solving short and medium term, are you pre-product market fit (PMF) or heavy into growth and scale etc.... again, I could go on.

My point is, culture is nothing to do with idealistic values and everything to do with how work is experienced.

So, back to the main question of whether hiring for culture is a positive or negative.

To be clear, I think culture is very important, but my view is that culture is emergent and representative, not fixed and idealistic. Culture is not something which can be boiled down to a set of words and principles. Especially when those words and principles do not reflect the reality of lived experience and observable behaviour.

If you hire based on idealistic culture, expect idealistic outcomes.

If you hire based on observable reality, expect realistic outcomes.

I turned to one of my favourite parables to bring the point home about why transparent hiring practices grounded in reality will ALWAYS win in my mind.

The Shackleton Principle

I have made reference to this concept in previous newsletters, countless podcasts, and now panels! It's a story worth repeating until the lesson lands.

In 1914, Ernest Shackleton set out on an expedition to cross Antarctica. He never made it. His ship, Endurance, got stuck in sea ice before they even reached land, and eventually sank. What followed was 18 months of extreme survival.

The crew were stranded in the frozen sea ice for months before Shackleton and five of the crew used a lifeboat to row over 700-miles of open sea to reach South Georgia. They then had to cross the island’s uncharted mountains to get help. And here’s the kicker, every single one of the 28 crew survived.

Below is the actual job advert placed in paper by Shackleton when putting his crew together 👇🏻

In case it isn't readable the add says: "Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success."

Can you honestly say you would have applied? 👀

Not exactly the stuff of dreams is it; small wages, bitter cold, constant danger... safe return doubtful - basically, if you come with me on this journey with me you will be cold, miserable and you will probably die... If all goes well that is 😱

Can you imagine a job advert of today being quite so brutally honest about the hazardous journey ahead? Doubtful, now all we get is "great culture, flexible working, and competitive salary" 🤣

The truth is, had Shackleton painted an idealistic picture, something like "chance to travel the world, create memories to last a lifetime, become the legend you were born to be!" - The chances are, the people who applied would not have had the fortitude and resilience to survive what turned out to be even worse that what was advertised!

This is exactly the same as "hiring for culture fit" when the culture is poorly defined and idealistic. You end up hiring people who are not prepared to go on the hazardous journey with you.

My advice, adopt the Shackleton principle.

Hire for the skills and attributes that your business actually needs to solve the problems and challenges it is facing short and medium term. Be honest if things are a bit shit right now. The point is, you want to hire people who know it's going to be shit for a while and still want to join you on the journey. Those are the people who are most likely to survive the journey and they might just help you make the reality a little less bleak for the next hiring round.

This is particularly true in start-ups by the way. The hazardous journey actually isn't a metaphor, it's very real. You do not want to hire people who are looking for stability, 9-5 hours and a ton of structure... I can tell you now, that will not work out for either party.

So, don't hire for idealistic culture fit. Hire for the hazardous journey ahead.

OK, that’s a wrap for this week.

Grab your coffee and open up your inbox same time next week for insights, tips, and resource flags on how to smash HR silos, add strategic value and turn your People function into a growth driver 🚀

With love,

Luke ✌🏻

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