Audrey Hametner: Build a Strong Company Culture to Increase Your Startup's Efficiency

Hello, welcome everybody to our Monday event, part of our Educational Monday series. Today's topic is how to build a company culture that will increase your startup efficiency. My name is Emilia and I'm content manager at Founder Institute and I'm joining from Sofia today. Please add in the chat where are you joining from. We usually have a very global audience and it's super exciting to see where you guys are joining from. Let me check. We have people from Spain, from Ethiopia. Amazing! For some of you it's evening, others during the day, but thank you for joining. Today we'll be joined by our FI graduate Audrey Haminter. She's the founder and CEO of Bedrock Program, which she will tell us shortly more about. And Audrey has multiple degrees from renowned institutions, including of course the Founder Institute GCC cohort. She will talk today about how company culture correlates with success, productivity, and efficiency. And recently, she focuses on the people side of business, and she's an expert with this, and she will share her valuable experience with us. But before we bring Audrey on stage, a few words about the agenda today for those who are joining us for the first time. First, Audrey will present for about 20-30 minutes, which will be followed by a Q&A session. So please add your questions to the Q&A section on your right-hand side, and we will bring them on stage after her presentation. And later on, we'll have a networking session on our airmeet tables where you can connect with Audrey, with us from Foundry Institute, and of course with each other and with other experts and founders. Also, we want to get to know you and to hear your opinion, so we created a poll for you. I'm gonna bring it on stage right now. We asked you one question: Has company culture been part of your business strategy from the beginning? You can vote now, it's live. So most of you yes, which is amazing. It's still very good that you're joining us to hear something new and more, so you want to make it even better. A lot of you not really, and about 10% are willing to start to include company culture in the strategy from now on. Okay, I'm going to remove this from for now and I say, can we bring Audrey on stage? And before, while she's coming, I just want to show you a few more features. There are emojis under the screen. You can express your support and your reactions for Audrey. And also the Q&A section where you add your questions and vote for them. Thanks a lot. Welcome, Audrey. I'm handing it over to you. Thank you, Amelia.

Hello everyone, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you, Amelia and FI, for inviting me here. It's always nice to, to give back and, and be back where my founder's journey really started to take off. I'm gonna speak a bit today about effectiveness of your culture on efficiency. And some of what you'll hear today is not new. However, a lot of it needs to be refreshed and brought back to the memory, if for those who do know. And for those who don't know, please feel free to step in, ask questions, put it in the chat, and I'll definitely get to address it as we go along. There's 3 main points that I want to spend some time today. I think everyone can see my, my presentation. Yes. I'll assume there's a yes. And the 3 things I want to talk about today is building a strong company culture, how to measure the effectiveness of that culture, and a few top strategies to focus on in order to achieve success and productivity using culture as your base. Before that, I just want to set the stage a little bit about myself. So, I have over 23 years of global business experience. You probably can tell from my accent I am a British Canadian. So, a little bit of British words will pop up every once in a while. But I sound very Canadian. My global career started off in North America, moved into Europe. I'm in the Middle East now, and I've held different positions in different sectors and also in different parts of business. So I come to you today with a very wide breadth of background, perspective, understanding of business, everything from product services, and you name it. I just wanted to share with you that I do come from large conglomerate down to, you know, hot darling at the time, small company, and then of course entrepreneur. So the Bedrock Program is the second company I launched. The first was THG Consulting. Since my background is in finance and operations, operational excellence, being where I've managed global teams across the globe, 22 offices, and got to the point of global vice president in quite a prestigious media technology firm. So I wanted to start off the session today with my favorite quote, and I say it's my favorite quote because Over the years, it's proven to be 100% true, even the times when people have debated it and said it's absolutely not true. You can have a great strategy, you can plan for every event and every scenario under the sun, but if the people implementing your plan don't do it in the right way, even if they follow it to the T, if the feeling, if the culture around the company that you have is not what you want, it will make all the difference in the world. And I know that some of you like myself can probably remember working for companies that were great under awful bosses and thought you're in the worst department ever. And this is what we're talking about when we say that culture eats strategy for breakfast. The whole concept that you need to have a strategy, you need to know what you're doing, you need to have all the bits and pieces in place, but it will all fall apart if you don't have the right strategy. I mean, sorry, you don't have the right culture. And that culture is what drives efficiency, because people who feel endeared to do the best they can are people who are driven and feel the cultural impact of the organization that you create. Now, this type of impact is not only something that a large conglomerate can make. This can be something that is felt in a 2, 3, 4, 5, 10-person organization. And I just want to talk a bit about what it means. It sounds scary to those who are new to the concept of starting a business, especially as a founder, because we are constantly running. We're running to get the product out. Sometimes the product isn't finished. We're running to make our first revenue. We're running to raise funds. We're constantly moving. But what I— the most important thing that we have to start with when you're thinking about your culture are the core values that you are trying to bring to the table as a founder. Okay, it's about not about your values per se. It's about the values that you're trying to live through the company for the people and the product that you serve. It's a huge distinction there. My core values do link to my company, but my company core values can differ from my own. And this is important because the values of the company are the values that everyone else needs to understand. So you need to be able to sit down and define what those are. And in, in, in the Bedrock program, which is, which is my company now, we focus on helping youth build confidence and develop a career path. So that is my focus. The value of my company is openness, it's inclusion, okay? And we spend a lot of time in everything we do creating, uh, coherent plans for clients. So metrics are also a very important part of our business, and you will constantly hear about values, and you'll constantly hear about planning and metrics. And everyone who works with me, whether they are full-time employees or they are contractors, they understand the values of the company. They understand that young people come first and that the ecosystem around those young people, whether it's schools, governments, families, social interactions, all of that comes back to the individual, and it's a client that we serve. The other thing that's important once you identify what those core values are. And do take the time to go through that exercise. It's not an easy thing to do when you actually think about your company as a separate entity from yourself. And you think, what are the values that I want to clearly communicate and define for my employees, whether they are employees or consultants? That is a really tough thing to grapple with. But once you do, the next thing for building a strong company culture is literally fostering open communication and collaboration. Open communication is where you can speak freely in whichever mannerisms and fun or formal or informal or flexible form that you want. But also that you give that space for the people that you've brought in to build this beautiful company with an opportunity to collaborate with you, to feel that they are part of what you're building. And this is important. I know that for many founders, we take for granted, of course, they're building the team with me. And, and, and, but there's also founders that I've met and founders that I've worked for that also feel that, well, I'm building this and it's my baby, and everyone else should sort of come in line with what it is that I'm creating. And while that is true to a point, because we have to have leadership in order to build a truly strong culture where people feel that they can grow and flourish, they also feel that they they generally feel that they need to be able to collaborate and to leave a piece of themselves and grow with the company. And every top-performing company out there right now that is considered to have a good company culture has an element of this built in, especially when they were small, i.e., where we are now in terms of the startup phase, and those first few generations. Companies like Google, they still create that but they do it in departmental level. And they offer different types of incentives across a large organization in order to still create and foster that collaboration which drives innovation, which drives efficiencies, and they start to think of different and new ways to attack problems that you're having, to look at future trends and structure what you've hired them to do to have legs in the future. And that leads to my third point: leading by example, and more importantly, empowering your employees. And again, when I use employees here, in this day and age, not everybody hires a full team. They might hire contractors, they might hire seasonal workers, they might hire people on a part-time basis. All of these, when I use the term employees, it's your team. Those who are driving and building that company with you. Leading by example is showing them that you trust them to do the work that you've hired them to do, and that you are living these values. You're fostering this communication and collaboration, and you're expecting it back from them. And this is important. But as you do these things, as you consider it, as you manage it, do remember that this takes time. It's not an easy concept to necessarily get right the first time. If you stumble and you find that there are times when you lose your cool and your leadership falters and you're not as open and communicative as you would like to be, it takes time and effort. But those who are with you for the long run will see that consistency, and you will foster a genuine commitment from everybody. So you're building this beautiful company. You're open. You're communicative. You're collaborative. There are several ways that you can, as a leader, keep your eye on the ball or keep your pulse to the company to ensure that the effectiveness of a good culture is actually coming through in how the business is being run. Because in the end, we're not just a group of friends having fun. We're trying to build a sustainable business that has a life that can eventually have a life of its own and really grow to what you believe or what you're driving success to be for your company, whether you are for a social entrepreneur or you are a classical entrepreneur. The first thing is to listen. You will be surprised, and I, having worked in a number of different types of organizations, have always seen employees are always open to speaking, and it's only the boss or the leader that listens that truly understands what's happening. So take a moment and listen. Ask open-ended questions. Be very, very active listening focused and listen to their experiences. Listen to how they perceive issues different from each other and work together. Listen to their suggestions for improving not just the product but also the culture. As founders, we tend to run. And oftentimes when we are running, there are people around us who are sort of holding up that yellow card saying, hold on a second. We're missing something here. And I've seen it in my business where we are moving on to the next opportunity and my team saying, hold on, you're leaving money on the table. You're leaving opportunities to improve on the product so that you can gain more traction. Because we're either not listening to the clients or we're not paying attention to certain signs. And having that diverse group around you really does bring that efficiency to the forefront, but it's only there if you hear it. So part of what you need to do is the water cooler talk, the chit-chats on remote meetings, the discussion in the corridors. Pay attention to the stories. Pay attention to the shared experiences. And all of these bring together insights as to how they're living the culture that you're creating. And when you start to hear red flags, don't brush it off and think, 'Wow, it's just because last month was really difficult.' Because the way that people respond in difficult situations tells you a lot about their base level. We can always look great at the best times, take a moment, brush ourselves off, and come to the table. But when life is frazzled, and everyone has their head down and the pressure is on, oftentimes that's when you see the real person come out. So pay attention and don't let an opportunity where maybe you've let someone in that doesn't share the right values and culture disrupt and take your business apart. The other thing is monitor social media. We all know everybody's on it and they are sharing. They're sharing how their day was at work. They're sharing how crappy their boss is. They're sharing anecdotes. They're sharing, you know, Glassdoor and Comparables. These type of organizations are there because people want to share their feedback and their experience. And oftentimes companies that don't pay attention are the ones that miss the signs on how they can correct and/or work on that for themselves. Next, pay attention to retention and turnover rates. I know it sounds big company to talk about exit interviews, but even if it's just a coffee or a drink after someone has left, take a moment and find out once they walk through that door and it's over, what's the real deal? What did they truly go through? Because oftentimes, they will share. They want to. Even if they didn't feel they had the opportunity before, they will do so. And if you as the founder is probably not the person at that time to have that coffee, turn to your co-founder or someone else in the organization that you trust that is helping you to build and develop the culture, you will get the information that you need in order to keep things aligned with what you want, with those originally stated and clear values and direction for your culture. It's very important. The matrices to run your business those productivity matrix, these bees creating honey. It's very easy for them. There's no honey, we're not being productive. With people, it's a much more, how would you say, convoluted story, right? It could be a personal issue, it could be a work-related issue, it could have nothing to do with the person, but it could be environmental, it could be economics, Performance and all of the different matrices and KPIs that you measure are important. And when you put that together with culture, when you put the hardcore numbers of did we make our sales targets, are we achieving the growth figures in terms of product development that we're looking for, are we meeting our hiring needs, All of these things together will give you a good idea. If you see people are going through the doorway faster than you can imagine but you're still meeting your numbers, you probably are doing well productively. But it's not going to last because people are burning out. If you find that the feeling in the organization is slowly becoming one where people aren't spending that quality amount of time getting to know each other and developing the relationships that help to make workplace efficiency better, i.e., sharing information, coming up with new ideas for problems that they see, all of these, then you know, uh-oh, we're okay right now, but I can see the slippery slope between staying at a high-performing level that becomes easier and is self-perpetuating, i.e., a stronger culture, or they're really struggling to meet the numbers and to perform and we need to support them. Them being the people on the ground. So I want to spend a little bit of time just talking about some of the strategies that you need They're going to sound basic in some respects, but when you actually think about them, really important. First, just because you're a small team as a startup does not mean everybody understands what your goals and expectations of them in the team at all times are. A pause because it's important. Our goal is to raise sales so that we can make revenue. Fabulous. Okay, I work in it and I know that I just gotta keep the system running. That's not the only thing you need to do. You need to be checking out for efficiencies. You need to be making sure that you're monitoring for any issues, whether it's incursions, making sure the system's running, making sure There's so much more that we do as a team. And oftentimes, because the leader only speaks from one voice or from one specific objective, people forget about the rest. And this is one of the reasons why we have the team leads, right? The product development or the product manager and the head of finance, et cetera. But in a small team, we don't have the luxury of those different team leads all the time. So as a founder, it's really important to keep those hats on. Specific metrics, milestones, track progress, whatever you can do to put in front of someone's face, for lack of a better phrase, on a regular basis to help keep them on track is very important because it also helps them stay the course so that they feel that they're being an active participant in growing your business. Provide the resources and support. I have seen so many organizations, not just startups, where everyone's so focused on saving money that they don't give the team the right resources and support to actually make the money in the first place. And the mathematics doesn't, doesn't add up. So we're not saying go out and buy the most expensive tools, But do recognize if people are struggling, it might be that they need some sort of support. And being proactive at identifying what that is can really help people feel that they're being supported in their role and supported to success— to succeed in the company, and therefore supported in the company's success. Next is promoting autonomy. How many times— I don't know about you, but for me, I have been hired at a senior level to do my work and my manager or their boss are constantly stepping in, stepping on my toes, not giving me the opportunity to really show them that I can do what they hired me to do. Not because of me. It could be their own insecurities. It could be that they're afraid that something that happened in the past will happen again. Whatever it is, as founders, we have a responsibility to stop and give people a chance to actually solve those problems, to make those decisions, to take risks in a psychologically safe environment where if they falter, they're not necessarily going to get their fingers wrapped all the time. But you're actually going to be able to work with them to develop the right strategies and support. Another thing that falls by the wayside that comes together when teams are really high performing is setting realistic deadlines and managing their workload. Realistic deadlines is where someone actually has the comfort to turn to you as a founder and say, I understand that this is what you need, but dude, there's no way we're going to meet that deadline. I need an extra day or two or a few hours. And if you hear that, not thinking, oh, this person's let me down, but thinking, wow, you know what? I'm glad you stepped up. Maybe we need to bring someone else in to support you so we hit that deadline. Or, OK, yeah, I gave you a pretty ambitious target. I'm prepared to give you an extra day or so. This is what really helps you drive high performance because people feel heard, people feel supported, and they then will strive to, you know, want to please you by getting the work done and doing it to the best of their abilities, not just ticking the box. And then finally, of course, being that founder that leads by example. I have worked for countless founders that have said wonderful things about reporting and sharing and supporting each other. And when push comes to shove, they're gone. We don't see from them, hear them. They expect it of the team but have no interest in being communicative and so forth. I'm sure many of you can relate and have probably worked for people like that. And it is heartbreaking. And you think to yourself, you don't really feel that way. People can see that it's not authentic, right? So leading is actually leading. It's being in those shoes with them. Sometimes you're on the ground. Sometimes you're leading in front or behind. Sometimes you're leading side by side. But you're always living those values that you're asking them to also lead. I want to end here by showing you what the companies that actually embody what I'm talking to you about look like. Okay? Some of these are big companies and some of these are medium-sized companies and some of these we know because they've only just started to really grow and cross that incredible threshold. But all of these companies have constantly been awarded by their employees the status of being high-performing, efficient, and a great place to work because the culture really pushes people to want to be there. Now, for the big behemoths, yes, I agree with you. They're not always consistent across the board. But if you can build a company where people will consistently come out internationally and share that that's how they feel about your company culture, you're far ahead of most others. And finally, this is what people say when companies get it right. This is what they say. They say they feel recognized. They feel that even if it's a remote team, they feel that they're part of a team. Right? They feel that they have a positive impact. You know, it does come down to the culture. You have to have the right bones. I'm not saying that you only have a good culture. You have to have the product, the product-market fit. You have to have the right strategy in place. But you have to have the right culture to support everything else and make people do what you hired them to do effectively and with, you know, their whole selves. Thank you. I don't think I went over my time, at least I hope not, but thank you for your time. Thank you for your attention, and feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn if you wish. I'm gonna stop sharing here and give Amelia a chance to share any questions or comments that anybody had about the presentation.

Yes, thank you, Audrey. That was very inspiring. Feel free to use the emojis down here to show your appreciation to Audrey's presentation. It was exactly in time. So we have time for questions now. We have a couple of them here. First, I will put it on stage. In a startup environment, especially at the early stage, when the values need to be formulated? At which stage?

That's an excellent question. Start from the beginning. You will pivot your business constantly as a founder, early stage. You will pivot, constantly changing a little bit about who and where and how and, and, and, and the nuances of your, of your business. But values in terms of what you want to be known for, how you want to make people feel who come and work for you, This should start at the beginning. You don't have to have the whole set in play from day one, but you should have a few ideas and you should put them down, whether you write them on your board or whether you have them in your book to remind you when you get frustrated. Yeah, but you know what, I don't want people to feel that when they come and work with me, they can't make a mistake and we can't work through this. All right, I'll hold on, hold on for a second and manage my well-being so that that person can feel heard and validated and we can work through. Issues as we come. So I'd say from the beginning.

Awesome. Now, being based in Dubai, I put this one on stage.

What—

how does startup integrate into diverse religious and tribe complex African financial ecosystem?

So I am Canadian, as I mentioned, and I've worked in Europe and I've worked here in the Middle East. So I have seen people be able to work together that you never would have expected, right? It's not about— okay, If you have the right culture in place and you set the right ground rules so everyone knows what's expected of them and how to interact, you will find that a lot of the cultural forces that normally drive people apart are not as strong. If you just put everybody in and you leave them to their own cultural concepts and mindsets, you will have fighting. You will have people who can't listen, that don't agree, that don't know how to sit down and talk to each other because there is no structure that tells them that this is important. So the most important thing is to be able to identify, you know what, the employees I'm hiring here are quite diverse. How do I want them to work together? And when you start to put the guardrails in place, people will also feel more comfortable not to conform but to find a way to communicate effectively, knowing that everyone else also has to make the same changes and modifications to their thinking and their behavior in order to drive the company forward. No one joins your company to tear it apart. So sometimes people just need to be guided on what's expected. I hope that helps.

Right. Sure. And speaking of employees, we have a couple of questions about remote teams. What about building company culture when you have remote employees? And this is our case here in Founders Institute and many other companies.

Yes.

What are some tips to make remote employees feel very—

feel very included? This is a great, this is a great one. And I, I am gonna be, put my hands up and say, I, it's been something that we've all been struggling with, myself included, because I have employees that are very warm and cuddly. And, you know, we do things like send cake on their birthdays to their homes. And we have a team event and they don't know the cake is coming in. And oh, how fun. Every, you know, there's a piece of cake and everybody else knew it was coming in and has a coffee or a drink to celebrate. And we have a lighthearted time built around work in order to celebrate moments. Right? But sometimes you have employees that just want to get on with work and they are quite happy to be remote because they're not so touchy-feely and they don't necessarily want that. And in some cases, remote working works for them. In some cases, remote working makes people feel so disconnected that they kind of feel like I could be anywhere. So you really need to take extra time and attention in understanding the personalities of the people you're working with. And I would say try and if you can afford it, make time in the year, whether it's once or twice a year, to try and bring everybody together, to try and still foster a sense of togetherness sometimes, because it's very different to have that energy face-to-face than to be doing it all the time on a screen.

Exactly. Thanks. And last question, maybe we can put two in one. Uh, one of them is, uh, here I'll bring it on stage. How would you handle an employee that shows they don't match with the culture or is communicating they're not happy? And the other question was how to maintain a positive company culture when all the employees are resigning.

Ooh, okay. So if your employees are resigning, as the founder, you want to get ahead of it. You need to be having those exit interviews. You need to be the person in the front asking the question, what's not working? And giving absolute space to hear the truth. Because this is the difficulty. If you don't hear the truth, you don't know if it's one person who's killing the culture, or if it's a set of policies that are killing the culture, or if you're not understanding something around the way that people are working. And if it's a mixture of it all, the only way you're going to get ahead of it is to know. If people aren't meshing, offer them an ear and offer them an opportunity to also provide you with a solution. I understand that you're having an issue. What could we do differently in the company that would help? You'd be surprised, people have ideas. They just don't often feel that they have the right to share those ideas. And sometimes, what someone else thinks is a wholly impossible idea, no one's gonna listen, it's totally doable. Why not? And then all of a sudden, everything changes. So you really need to take that time to try and understand what is it that they're not meshing with. We in the UAE, I had through my consultancy from THG, I was working with a company and they had Emirati, which are the locals, and they were having a really hard time keeping them employed in the company. And it was a great company by your or my or any European standard. It was a great company, but these Emirati ladies were not interested and they didn't want to stay. And there's a legal requirement here. That you have a certain amount in, in your, uh, in your business, or you get fines and, and all kinds of other not so nice things. And when I— they brought me in and they said, look, we need some help, right? We're having this issue and we think things are fine. And in the end, it was the fact that in Emirati culture, um, women are more subdued. They didn't want to sit in an office and hear about drinking on the weekend. They were not interested interested in the type of culture that the other people had, and so they always felt alienated. So what we did was we put in place some cultural learnings so that everyone else understand, or could understand, why the Emiratis tended to not want to be a part of things. And the understanding on the Emirati side to say that doesn't make the others good or bad regardless of how you think about the topics they talk about. But as you both start to understand the cultures better, we make space for comfort under certain situations so that you could get to know each other. And we started to foster social events that were a little bit more in line with comfort, and it helped. I'm not saying it fixed it overnight, but it definitely made a marked improvement. So again, listen, listen to what's not working and ask people, what can you do to improve the situation?

This sounds like a great end of today's session. Thank you once again. I hope Audrey's amazing insights will help you reflect on your own founder style. Journey. And now we can meet in the networking tables. All of you keep following our events. You all receive the recording in 48 hours along with other resources. And thank you once again for joining. See you soon.

Thank you, everyone.