We’re at 80 people right now in 2.5 years, that’s a lot of growth. You’re [Vayner Media] at 800 people. You’ve been able to keep your culture intact here. We’re hitting a stage now where there’s people coming through the door 2 and 3 layers removed from me now, I don’t know their names anymore. I should know that guy more. New policies and procedures are being introduced… how have you been able to grow your agency and keep your culture?
This question was asked of Gary Vaynerchuk (Vayner Media CEO, known to many as the Entrepreneur’s Entrepreneur) on a recent episode where he was engaging small business owners. Gary, being Gary said “fire them“. He explained that you are not going to be able to have the same relationship with employee 201-800 that you’ll have with 1-200 and that your job now is to watch out for those who are going against the grain, cutting corners, playing politics, etc. Find those who are counter-culture and get rid of them.
It’s a pretty pragmatic response really and he’s correct in that people are not going to have the same relationships as the company grows, So yes his is the right action… for a CEO who doesn’t care about people caring about culture.
Yep, to old school, Machiavellian leadership surgical removal makes sense. But it’s the 21st century, it’s the social age with connected organizations and social business. I’d hope a leader today who wishes to thrive would instead scrutinize every system they have that can be seen as supporting counter behaviors to the workplace they want. If people are cutting corners or cutting throats – WHY? Even a few bad apples could be the symptom of a greater disease in the DNA of the business. Asking questions like – How are decisions-made? Does knowledge flow easily? What truly gets measured here? What do we reward? Each of these systems, processes and policies can drive behaviors that can either advance or retard your business.
My advice to this CEO is to work on ensuring top to bottom connection for those 80 employees. Social technology can play a significant role but it doesn’t start there, it can’t. Those pesky systems and processes need to be examined and modified otherwise the behaviors will be pulled back to status quo and you’ll be wasting much time and money on a platform. Next, management. This is a key artery often overlooked at supporting greater connection. Most in the social space like to say you must have leadership buy-in and they mean c-suite, however this MAY be important in some organizations but most employees don’t look that far up. Their direct manager drives much of their direction and addressing their support of openness and collaboration here can have a trickle down effect.
In the end though, what I propose will help the company have greater connection but it doesn’t address the CEO’s main concern, that being “I don’t know their names anymore“. He could take Gary’s advice and stay the course, accepting the reality of not really getting to know 200+ people or he could look at it another way. By sharing and engaging in conversations openly and across all levels, his 200+ people can get to know him; know what he stands for, what he expects and what matters to the business most.
