Culture Fit
When I was interviewing to join Inspire, there was one sentence every person I met with repeated, “It’s very important to us that you are a good cultural fit.” While I liked the fact that culture was being highlighted as something that was important, at the time this statement kind of rubbed me the wrong way. What the hell did “culture fit” really mean?
First, a little context on the situation. There were less people working there than I could count on both hands. When I pushed my interviewers to articulate what their culture really was, the answers were all over the board.
So this statement of the search for a “good cultural fit” came across as, “We’re going to be extremely judgmental, stereotype the shit out of you, and if you remind us of one of our friends, maybe we’ll hire you.” Now I thought I could work with everyone I met in those interviews, but I wasn’t sure any of them would have picked me for the baseball team growing up. You see, I’ve rarely been one of the bees in the hive. My circle of friends is admittedly intimate. And while I thought these people were smart, I knew I wasn’t quite like any one of them.
I figured that this wasn’t a test I was going to pass. The initial interview was a 3 hour inquisition. Five 40 minute sessions. And though I interviewed with the eagerness of a starry-eyed ASB president candidate, I really didn’t know what to make of this place or these people and their so-called culture.
But, I continued the interview process and over time, my flirtation with this little clean tech start-up got serious. I soon found myself seriously vying for and accepting an offer to join their fledging marketing team.
Ironically, what sold me on the opportunity was Patrick, (our founder’s,) posture towards culture. Maybe the culture was unformed, but just the desire to create a good one was meaningful to me. Patrick’s rhetoric around hiring good, scrappy people and building a best-in-class culture was so visionary, that at first I thought he must be totally full of shit. I had never heard a leader talk with such earnest and ambitious intentions. This was a guy who actually thought he could build a commercial business focused on doing good in the world, starting with employees.
And once I realized he wasn’t kidding, or just talking about culture because it sounded good, there was really no going back. And ultimately, the opportunity help develop the culture at Inspire has been one of the most fun experiences of my career.
Whether it was being there at the beginning of traditions or figuring out what we wanted our offices to look like or thinking about the defining characteristics of new Avengers we wanted to bring on, we built the foundations of a unique, quirky, and performance-driven culture. And today, there’s a much clearer shared vision for what this culture is. It was a life lesson for me that sometimes intention is enough, if stakeholders are open and eager to build.
I spent much of my time at Bosch attempting to define our brand for the US market and align stakeholders behind our flag. But legacy encumbered us constantly. Some people were just hanging around to collect a paycheck. And that kind of thing is like a virus when it comes to culture.
Inspire wasn’t just defining it’s brand, it was defining the company. And this posture towards growth was and still is at the beating heart of everything. The people. The experience. The product mindset. The physical surroundings. A place of possibility.
The work of culture building is never done. As I write this, we’ve grown almost tenfold since the day I joined.
When I interview candidates, they ask me my favorite thing about Inspire. My response is always the same: it’s the tremendous sense of ownership I feel over this place, and the potential for ownership that’s possible for all of us, whether you joined 1 day ago or 1 year ago or more.
Over time I’ve come to see that this sense of being at the beginning is perhaps what’s most important. We can either create our ideal company, or let happen us. And that’s exciting, because there will always be bigger, better goals to build towards. And the opportunity to build is why we rise.
