(Excerpt from The Road Less Stupid by Keith Cunningham)
The vast majority of business management teams—whether a publicly held Silicon Valley behemoth or a mom-and-pop Sioux Falls corner drugstore—have drunk the Kool-Aid that stocking the kitchen with free protein-enriched smoothies and heart-healthy pork rinds are drivers of culture. Having a corporate concierge service pick up your dry cleaning and arrange for a back massage do not promote culture.
Recently I heard an extremely well-known entrepreneur tell an audience that she is encouraging a great culture at her company by building two nap rooms for her employees. Seriously, nap rooms? She made the stupid mistake of thinking perks drive culture . . . and that is dead wrong. Perks are wonderful for employees, but they come closer to driving entitlement than culture. (Instead of nap rooms, it would have been far cheaper to stock the kitchen with Red Bull, but then again, why stock a five-hour energy drink if your employees are only going to work four?)
The problem is not limited to Silicon Valley. Look at any business magazine when they rank “The Best Companies to Work For.” The litmus test is always based on perks, goodies, and benefits, not on culture, challenge, personal growth, or getting stuff done. The assumption is that more coddling equals happier employees. Dumb! That’s analogous to saying more money can fix a broken marriage. More money might make it bearable, but it won’t fix it.
Culture is about accountability, measuring, a bias for urgency, a focus on solutions, calling it tight—saying what needs to be said—being kind and generous, acknowledging one another, and expressing appreciation.
In case you doubt what I am saying, just take a look at U.S. Navy SEALs. They have one of the greatest cultures of all time and it is not because they get to bring their dog to work or have a nap room. They get stuff done, hold each other accountable, and work in unison for a common objective . . . and they are proud of their results!
All relationships—be it marriage, parent-child, boss-employee—operate within a culture. Regardless of the relationship, certain ways of acting and “showing up” are permitted and acceptable and others are strictly out of bounds and inappropriate.
The problem is that the culture we currently have in our workplace relationships is rarely a culture we consciously created. Rather, the culture in our businesses is a culture we have tolerated because of a lack of courage to address the problems of back-biting, smack, cliques, excuses, blaming, silence, gossip, procrastination, missed deadlines, being late (and unprepared) for meetings, mediocrity, and doing just enough to get by.