78 | Building Hybrid Work Culture: Connecting & Communicating in a Changing World | Kyoko Minegishi

Welcome to the Building Better Cultures podcast, where I talk to leaders about how internal communications, engagement, and leadership all play a key role in creating amazing and successful cultures.

I think that's the core of culture building. And so, you know, how do you end up not as like just a bathroom poster, but how do you really engage every single person in that collective or that community to drive and progress that business forward? And it all is about people, in my opinion.

Hello there and welcome to this episode of the Building Better Cultures podcast with me, Scott McInnes. As we always do at the beginning of every episode, a quick thank you to Workvivo. A little more on them later, but if you are struggling with communications as you're moving to your new hybrid working model, or you just want to ziz things up a little bit, then their comms platform is well worth a look. You'll find more about them at workvivo.com. Today's guest, I love having business leaders on the pod because the stories that they tell and the examples that they give are always brilliant and so practical that, you know, it's great for listeners, for all of you out there to be able to just pick up those things, take them and run with them often. And I love that. And I'm really excited about today's guest. She's based in the US. She's the former global head of marcomms at Red Bull. She's now the VP of marketing at Ori, which is a robotic furniture and smart homes technology company, which sounds extremely interesting. We'll get more from Kyoko on that in a second. But so good are they, they've actually attracted investment from Google's parents Alphabet and also from IKEA. So expect to see some of Ori's products in an IKEA near you soon. Hopefully, maybe Kyoko can tell us more about that in a while. But today's guest is Kyoko Minagishi. Kyoko, you're very welcome.

Thank you so much for having me, Scott. I love this topic and I love your podcast. And so thank you for pioneering this conversation because I think it's so incredibly important. So really happy to be here today.

Brilliant. Thank you very much. Listen, as I always do, I keep saying I'm going to change this format, and then I keep going, but look, if it's not broken, don't fix it. So we're going to kick on with the same format, which is maybe just giving you a few minutes to give us a decent introduction about yourself, unlike the one that I just gave there, which was, to be fair, a little half-arsed. So why don't you tell us a little bit about you, your background, and what you're doing now?

Yeah, cool. Thank you. Yeah, I think my story really starts kind of with the immense opportunity I had growing up in constant change. And usually people gawk at that word change. It's disruptive, it's daunting, it's confusing. But I was actually having this conversation with my sister the other night, and I don't actually remember it being disruptive or daunting. It's just what we did as a family. And I moved back and forth between the US and Japan 7 times before I was 12. I went on to live in Spain and Austria. I've traveled traveled over to, you know, 30+ countries, and I just am in this constant curiosity and transformation of change. And it's interesting because I actually don't ever remember my parents telling me that we were moving. And you would think that that's like an important communication moment for a child. You know, you're changing schools, you're, you know, you have to make new friends. But I really don't remember them ever announcing the move. It was just like all of a sudden we're in a new country and we just got on with it. And I have to say, that was great training. For my career. I have found myself, whether it's, you know, subconsciously intentional or not, in these environments of hypertransformation. And time and time again, I think from when I was a young age to today, I've just built the skill of adaptability because of the way that I grew up, and then also throughout kind of the industries and environments that I've been in. And so You know, if there's one constant in life, I would argue it is change. It's inevitable and very hard to kind of not have change. And that's really been, I would say, the skill set and thread throughout kind of my journey. And so when I started my career, I started in the music industry. And, you know, I was coming in at a time when the digital age was burgeoning. Record labels were really struggling to figure out how do we actually transform our business model and offering and engage our audiences in this new world order. And I saw the detriment, basically, of an industry that just wasn't adapting quickly enough. And this really gave me a lot of conviction and confidence around the skill set of adaptability in the business world. And, you know, I think what I was able to, you know, pivot, contribute, ideate within this environment was really kind of the inception of kind of the theme that I would go on to continue in my future jobs. So that really led me that led me to Red Bull, where our team was kind of a key team and integral into transforming Red Bull from a beverage company to a media business. And this is where I really got the opportunity to learn how to coach people through constant change, helping them to build this internal muscle of adaptability within them, enabling them to now pivot quickly to these constantly changing goalposts. And that was super meaningful for me because I could share this skill set now and also enhance my team's toolbox to really prepare them for success in this type of environment, which is inherently super challenging. After Rubble, I moved on to this exciting startup called Ori, which you briefly mentioned. And I'm really excited about Ori because we're in this movement of pioneering the way people live in their apartments through transformable furniture and smart spaces. And hopefully, the impact that we can make in this venture is really helping people maximize their space and ultimately enhance their well-being, you know, being confined in their four walls. And so imagine walls moving to expand into a walk-in closet or beds floating up to your ceiling to create a living room. And this has also been just an amazing opportunity for me to apply that adaptability skill set to a business and also to an industry now as we grow, scale, and ultimately create this new category within the real estate world. So that's all to say, been a super exciting adventure, uh, witnessing, influencing, driving, uh, this change in evolution throughout different types of industries, whether it be music, beverage, media, you know, et cetera. And, um, yeah, just really fun translating those skill sets to different environments, um, as, you know, people evolve and change.

And I think it's amazing, and thank you for that insight there. I think it's amazing when you talk about as a child having moved that many times between Japan and the US, and that just became the norm. That just became how we did things around here. And then you went on to talk about the whole idea of hyper transformation and hyper change and change being the norm. And that analogy of the boiling frog came to mind that when you're boiling a frog, if you just turn up half a degree at a time, the frog never realizes the water's getting any warmer. So that constant always-on change is much better than just dropping a frog into 95-degree boiling water because it's going to get an awful fright and jump out again, hopefully. But I think getting people into a mindset where change is the normal. We've had this whole idea of people being change ready for years. I coined in the past couple of years the term change active, where I don't want people to be change ready. I don't want them to be sheep dipped in some change program and told to stand there until the change comes. And then when the change comes, you'll be change ready for the change and it's going to be amazing. Actually, I want them to be change active. I want them to be looking at organization, their organization, their team, their little bit of the world, their little bit of the strategy they've got to deliver, and think to themselves, what can we do differently or better to make this better? How does that work? Them feeling empowered to be able to take that and do that and make that tiny little change, that tiny little incremental change, that when you take those tens of thousands of tiny little incremental changes, they all roll up into one great big change. Now, for that to happen, I think you need to have a really, really strong culture in an organization that's pointed in the one direction that is arrow straight, that everyone knows where they're going, why they're going there, and how they're going to get there. And we're all bought into that. And for me, that's critical. I wonder from your perspective and the importance of culture in organizations, how does an organization go about creating— this is like a billion-dollar question, by the way— how does an organization go about creating a culture that does have that idea, if you like to use your terminology, of hypertransformation at its very core?

I mean, for me, culture is an accelerator for progress. And in order to progress, usually, you know, there's change involved. And I think, again, if you think about culture as an accelerator, it's making your workforce better, faster, stronger, right? So it makes your workforce faster as you kind of synchronously move towards your goals. And there is like a little bit of, you know, orchestration and harmonization that needs to happen there in order for that to move efficiently. It also makes your workforce your workforce, I think, better, you know, better human beings as you take care of each other and you think beyond yourself about the collective group. And that's always going to be an accelerator. And then ultimately culture, I think, makes your workforce stronger by just creating bonds within that community, especially in times of change. And I think that bond is what either bonds a group during change or breaks a group during change. And so for me, culture is kind of non-negotiable when it comes to the bottom line and business success Because again, change is inevitable and you don't want your workforce breaking up because it inherently is a cost to the bottom line. And so for me, I think the importance of culture and how it actually manifests itself is in this collective harmonious way of how you progress a group from A to B. And that's really easy to say, very difficult to execute.

Yeah, for sure. And I think what's really interesting is the past 15, 16 months as we've been going through this pandemic and everybody working from home, I think lots of people at organizations have just taken that for granted. But for me, that has been a fundamental change that we haven't really perhaps seen as a change because it happens so quickly. In many countries, it happened overnight. One day you were in work, the next day you were at home. And we just got on with it. And when I think about that idea of bonds of community during change, that's really suffered, I think, over the past 15 months, that sense of connection with people has really suffered. Because whilst this is nice on Zoom, it's not the same, is it?

No. And I think a lot of topic of conversations, either, you know, that I've been having, or that I see a lot of my peers and colleagues in other industries having, is really around how do you maintain engagement? Through this virtual and/or hybrid working model. And again, through constant change, goalposts are moving, teams are changing, your environment is constantly shifting, and so you have to work extra hard to maintain that bond. So I think it's absolutely critical, and I think it's a massive topic right now as people try to figure out, okay, how do we come back into a new type of working, a new type of engagement, so that that culture still stays strong.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I love the idea of how do you maintain potentially falling levels of engagement. How do you do that?

I think it's a work in progress, I have to say, in terms of how we're thinking about it. And when we think about the hybrid working model, currently at my company, we have two different offices, one in Boston, one in New York. And so culturally speaking, I think we've had a very strong engagement just because we've put a lot of effort into those digital experiences, let's put it this way, that bond the two offices even before COVID Now going into COVID, I think that's only actually strengthened. So it's been a really interesting way to evolve. But I think as we think about the future and now this hybrid model of like, well, there's actually an opportunity now for us to actually be in person. How do we actually create really meaningful moments for that to happen while also allowing that flexibility for people to be productive in the work that what they're doing in the space that they desire. And so I would say it's a work in progress, but I think there's different models to do that. At Red Bull, it was very community-oriented, and so that personal interaction and engagement was hypercritical in creating that bond and that community. And I think that's what set Red Bull up for such a strong culture. Culture was at the pinnacle of, I would say, the workforce and something that was definitely manifested as a non-negotiable. As a leadership team, we put a lot of effort into building that culture, maintaining that culture. And so I think, again, it just depends on, I think, the environment, the objective, and the size of the teams and where you're trying to go.

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For more, see workvivo.com. I'm going to come back to the engagement thing in a while and the hybrid bit. But actually when you mention Red Bull, let's have a little chat because I think from an external perspective, what you did in that organization I think is phenomenal that now people arguably wouldn't really even recognize it as a drinks brand, that it's an adventure sport. You know, if you said to me, what does Red Bull, if you said to my kids actually, it's probably a better bet. What does Red Bull do? Are they an adventure sports crowd, aren't they? Don't they do like mad skiing and people in squirrel flying squirrel suits and that nutcase jumping out of a hot air balloon at, you know, 100,000 feet above the earth and all that stuff. You did such a good job on the brand and it sounds like it had a really, really strong culture. What were some of the key things that you did to build and then maintain that culture in Red Bull?

Yeah, so I mean, I think Red Bull was and hopefully still is ingrained with kind of those still like those strong pillars of culture. But I think what we did is we were very intentional about bringing people together and creating that bond and that community. And when I say intentional, intentional. You know, we invested a lot of time and effort into, for example, a yearly conference where we would, you know, bring all the markets together, which, you know, obviously is an expense. But if you value and prioritize culture, it's not an expense, it's a, it's a value and an accelerator to actually your business. Um, and, you know, I think a lot of people during my tenure there, we woke up in the morning because of that community, because, you know, every market was one phone call away, and we had built friendships and with all of these different cultures, not only internally, but also externally for the cultures that we were serving as a marketing organization. And when I think about those global conferences, I would argue that if you talk to a lot of people that came out of that period, you know, that was a very impactful moment. From a headquarter perspective, we curated these workshops to ensure that, you know, the sharing of knowledge and learnings and insights, again, made us better, faster, stronger. So if there was a problem happening in Brazil that was actually relatable to South Africa, Africa. We were trading those stories in a very fast, efficient way, again, to move as kind of a global team forward in terms of, again, serving the audiences that you spoke about. And my verticals were very much focused on music, dance, art, and social innovation. And we were also very connected with those communities. And I think that's what really made Red Bull at the time extremely strong in terms of a cultural aspect, not only internally but also externally. And I think I think, you know, the mix of characters as we kind of put the teams together was such a special group of people that you had inspiration all around you. And I think that was what really created and also maintained that culture throughout, again, this constant transformation that we were going through at the business at the time.

Yeah, I think it's really interesting that there's such a strong brand externally that seems just a bit a bit mental as a brand. It's just a bit, it's just a bit on the edge of madness. And was that translated inside the organization from an internal brand perspective? Was it, did it seem that high kind of high octane? Was it high octane as we might see from externally? Was it the same internally?

Absolutely. And I think that was driven by passion. All the communities that we serve, whether it was in music, dance, social innovation, or art, we had such a mission to support these communities that, quote unquote, we were trying to give wings to. And that purpose, I would say, really propelled such enthusiasm, passion, and energy ultimately to showing up every day 150%. And that was lived and breathed through, I would say, not only in headquarters, but across all the markets as well. And that high-octane energy that you're talking about. I mean, you know, you don't, you know, just one day wake up and are like, oh, you know, let's try to do a media business. Like, it's a, you know, it's a very challenging endeavor to transfer a beverage business into a media business. And I think that audaciousness and innovation and also, you know, ballsiness, for lack of a better word, to do that is definitely ingrained, I would say, in the DNA of Red Bull at the time that I was there..

But I guess having, you know, what I love about that idea of people living with passion and living for passion is that I guess when you moved from being a beverage company to being a media company, somebody had to stand up and paint a picture, a really passionate, impassioned picture of what the future is going to look like, where we're going and why we're going there so that people could latch onto that story. That must have been something that you did as a, as a senior management Yeah, and I think, you know, we always had a very strong story-first approach.

And again, like everything started with a story. But again, if you think about the tagline of Red Bull, you know, Red Bull giving wings, it's really a person that's at the center of that storytelling always. And I think when you think about the athletes that Red Bull supports, the musicians that Red Bull supports, it's really based around, you know, the characters that we bring into that community and the And that's again, very translatable, both externally to the communities that we used to serve from a marketing perspective, as well as the teams that you're building internally.

Yeah, I think it's right. And I think passion and purpose particularly only really come to life. And you find this when you read lots of purpose statements in organizations, it's only when they talk about people or the impact you're having on people, the purpose statements really come alive. Because that's what we care about, right? Which is other people and doing something that benefits other people. Or maybe lifts them up or gives them wings or saves a life. Or I always say to any of my clients who work in kind of the medical world or the life sciences or something like that, like, you just surely you can't struggle with purpose because you're potentially saving lives or stopping illness happening. Or when I had Prateesh Shah on, you know, you're trying to find ways to cure cancer. So that is such a driver. And I think for me, it's always how do you see yourself in the bigger world, in the bigger picture, and how do you see how you impact on other people on the planet. That, for me, is what really gets me going, and I think what gets people going in general.

Absolutely. And I think that's the core of culture building. And so, you know, how do you end up not as, like, just a bathroom poster, but how do you really engage every single person in that collective or that community to drive and progress that business forward? And it all is about people, in my opinion. How do you engage these different people internally, as well as externally, to really propel that business forward? Without that investment in the people, you know, culture again, just becomes some words on a poster in the bathroom. And it's not something that's lived and breathed that is authentic and genuine and actually, you know, bonding.

Just for reference, I do like a poster on the back of a bathroom door, I have to say, from an internal comms perspective, because you do get a couple of minutes of quiet time where the person's got nothing else to do other than read your key internal comms messages. So, if you're out there, if you're putting together your marketing mix, don't forget about the bathroom posters. They're really important, but do other stuff as well. On internal comms, you said when we spoke before that poor internal comms can be really detrimental to the bottom line. What did you mean by that? And how is that the case?

Yeah. I mean, I think again, in constant change, communication is paramount, right? You want to understand as a whether you're a manager, individual contributor, leadership stakeholder, where you stand within the organization when you have this cascade of changes that are happening. I think communication is the key vehicle that basically helps you understand and context place yourself in this ever-evolving constant change. When that is done poorly, obviously, motivation decreases, people leave, trust is lost. The bond is broken and ultimately culture is broken. And so again, like I mentioned before, I think the cost of poor communication leads to that decrease in motivation, people leaving, trust being lost. And again, it's extremely expensive from a bottom line perspective to build and orchestrate a collective. And once you have missing pieces, it becomes inherently very difficult. You can think about it like missing musicians in an orchestra. You still might be able to make out what the piece is, but it's going to sound pretty bad and it's going to be really hard to listen to. Ultimately, you won't achieve your desired impact. I think communications is something that I am very personally sensitive to in terms of how to really think about who you're trying to convey that message to and curating and customizing that message to ensure that the actual intention lands. And, you know, I always say, like, it doesn't really matter about intention, it's all about reception when it comes in— when it comes to communication. And when you don't do it effectively, when you don't think about your audience and their current reality and what mindset they're in, and you're not thinking about, you know, what you're trying to achieve with that communication, ultimately you're not going to have your desired outcome. And so I always say, like, when you're trying to do effective communication, there are two paramount things that you have to ask yourself. Who's your audience and what's their current reality? And then what are you trying to actually achieve with that communication? And really trying to kind of like double back on all your chess moves in order to achieve that objective. And, you know, again, it's not enough just to communicate the message. You have to think about, okay, well, do they need to relay the message to another person? Person and their direct reports? What do you want them to feel? Do you want them to do something? Do you want them to, you know, do they need to motivate other people around this message that you're actually communicating? So I think oftentimes poor internal communications is just lack of kind of that follow-through between like the second, third, and fourth chess move of how the message actually trickles down through this chain of, you know, telephone on.

There was an example I was just thinking about last night. I had some family over and my mother-in-law came over and because they're old, they were talking about pensions and how much they got in their pension in the UK versus in Ireland. And we got talking and they said, oh, in the UK they recently had their— we have to pay a television license fee. And it used to be if you were a pensioner, you got that for free. But the government decided because of the coffers and they wanted to make some more money, they weren't going to give pensioners the free television license anymore. The day they announced that was the day after the 100th anniversary of the D-Day landings in the Second World War. And you kind of went, okay, so thank you very much everybody who's still alive for all that stuff that you did. You're all really old now. And then the very next day, oh, by the way, we're taking away your free television license, which to the average punter like you or me or somebody else might be like, well, sure, it's only it's only €100 or €50 or £50, whatever it is, it doesn't matter. But to people who watch a lot of TV, one minute you're patting them on the back and the next day, you're kind of going just taking away something that probably is quite important to you. And God, just smarted of just the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing. But just a really simple example of how you can give somebody a slap in the face. And maybe not totally, not intentionally. But exactly to your point, not about intention, but about reception.

Absolutely. And I think it's really that empathy, but then also humility of just being able to recognize that everyone has, you know, their own lives, their own mindset, their own reality. And so really connecting with that, and at least just taking those, you know, couple minutes to really think through how is that going to land with this specific demographic or this specific audience, and, you know, and also giving them the tools tools to then work with that information. I often find that internal communications is just like a statement, and then it just kind of falls flat. It's like, okay, thanks for letting me know that, but now what do I do with this? What does this mean for me, and how do I utilize this? And the usefulness of information, I think, is also a little bit of a lack of forethought in the sense of, okay, great, but now what? And so giving people the tools and the tactics to basically leverage that information into something useful and productive for their life, I think, is also really critical for effective communication.

At Inspiring Change, we help our clients to implement sustainable change and drive business performance by putting their people first. We do that through a focus on strategic internal communications, employee engagement, and leadership consultancy. If you're struggling with change or getting your people aligned behind your purpose, vision, or strategy, then get in touch. Simply visit our website at www.inspiringchange.ie for more. I want to go back to something you said a few minutes ago about hybrid working, that you were kind of working through it and you were getting there. And that whole idea of organizations and leaders in organizations having humility and the gumption and the belief and the bravery to say, you know what, I don't know, because we've never been through a pandemic before and we've never done hybrid working before on this scale. So when somebody says, well, what are we going to do? What's our plan? You don't really know. I mean, you've, you know, nobody really knows. We've got a bit of a plan of what we think is going to happen, but ultimately in 2 months' time, we might have to change the whole thing. And back to your point about, about hypertransformation and change being the norm. Kevin Empy was on recently from Work Matters, and he talks about experimentation and just getting into that kind of experimentation mindset and being agile with it so that you're not driving down engagement 'cause everyone's going, oh, hmm, well, they said we're gonna do X and then they did Y and that didn't work, and now there's something else happening and they just don't know what they're doing. This is just shocking behavior. That drives engagement through the floor. Whereas if people are going, we're all in the boat together, we're all going forwards, we're all going to get there, but we might have to just do it in different ways, then that's better because then people come to expect, well, Plan A didn't work, so we're going to try Plan B. And when Plan B doesn't work, we'll try Plan D. And if that doesn't work, we'll try Plan F. And if that doesn't work, then I'll come back to you all and ask you what you think is going to work. Are you seeing much of that in your organization or in other organizations that you're kind of talking to and working with?

Yeah, I mean, I think the most important thing as you're, quote unquote, trying to figure it out, as you say, is just really being connected with the workforce that you're trying to communicate this to and/or operationalize some sort of system. And I think, again, every type of function has different type of work. And especially within— if you have people that are building things in workshops, like physically, it's very different in terms what's needed in a hybrid work model than people who are, you know, maybe on phone calls all day. And I think, again, understanding your audience and how they work efficiently and productively and giving them the space and the opportunity to do so is going to be critical in creating effective hybrid work models. And again, I think it's about not just communicating the statement and building, you know, um, a nice guideline for this, but it's really about implementing the processes in the system systems that actually enable the behavior that you're looking for. That system and process, I think, is also integral for culture building. I think when you think about effective communication and/or hybrid work models and then subsequently culture, you have to really think through that value chain. You have to communicate the message so it's clear, there's direction, and you're giving them tools to utilize that information. Then second, you really have to ensure that all the business processes and systems that you're implementing through all the functions actually are enabling your workforce to walk the walk. And again, that can be applied to hybrid work models, but it's also very applicable to culture building in general.

And do you think organizations are ready for this hybrid work thing, flexi-working, or do you think that lots of them just want to get people back in the office and carry on as they were on March 12th, 29th, 2020?

Again, I think it totally depends on the work. And I think it depends on the workforce and the personalities and characters that you have there. There are some people, I think, that had been trained, let's put it this way, and skilled in the concept of working remotely. And so for this, this is like a cakewalk and they're like, "Oh, this is, I don't know what's different." Then you have other workforces and teams that have never had to work remotely before. And, you know, that requires a different type a different system and a process and education support system, let's put it this way, that enables them to work productively. And so I'm always a fan, as I put my, you know, also marketing brain on, like I'm always a fan of customizing per an audience in order to make sure that whatever it is that you're implementing is actually relatable and actually effective for them. And I think, again, it's really hard to just blanket statement say, this is what's gonna work as an overarching rule, but creating customized solutions options, let's put it this way, for different types of work, I think is going to be really important. And it's interesting because you see, you know, some burgeoning concepts kind of coming up in that wave of work from anywhere, hybrid work models. I just recently discovered this startup called Anywhere that basically allows you to, you know, book time at a coffee shop or, you know, maybe it's a hotel lobby or like just basically enabling you to reserve a seat somewhere and then, you know, work from quote-unquote anywhere. And it's like, okay, if you don't want to have a full-time office and you get inspired by being in a community of, you know, other travelers, let's put it this way, if you're a digital nomad, then, you know, is that actually the most effective environment for you? And, you know, now there are solutions kind of popping up that actually are catering to that need. And I think that's, you know, it's going to be really interesting to see what other solutions kind of come up in order to enable that hybrid work model and mindset. Again, I think it's how do you ensure that that productivity and engagement, you know, still not only maintain, but actually thrive and accelerate? Because again, you want to be moving up. You don't want to, like, stay the same.

No, no. And there's a huge opportunity here. And I'm going to pull my internal comms engagement and culture hat on over the top of your marketing hat. And when you talked about customizing by audience, I'm actually going to take that a step further and say that what I think needs to happen is we need to find our audiences and let them customize it themselves. So not us customizing it for them, but us painting a really clear picture of where we need to get to, us telling our strategic story in a very clear and compelling way so that everybody knows there's our North Star, there's where we're going, that's how we're going to get there. These are our values. This is our mission. This is our vision. This is our purpose. We all understand that. To the nth degree. And then, and the analogy I've been using is one of a sports pitch where, you know, we paint those lines of the pitch, then we hand over the ball to the teams and say, go score the goals. Because how you score the goals this week or next week is going to be completely different in your own team, and how you score goals is going to be completely different to every other team. So just go and score the goals. You know what it is we need to get done, just go and get it done. The end.

Yeah. And I think like that, that's, um, I think it's a virtuous cycle, right? You need to have, you know, what you mentioned before in terms iterative cycles and adaptability and agility. I think as we all figure this out, having a really close ear and listening to your workforce about how you're developing and progressing, because again, what might be reality today might not be a reality for tomorrow. And I think again, just being really empathetic and, and having an ear to the ground is going to be extremely crucial for success.

Yeah, and back to your point earlier about that reality is going to dictate how people receive whatever comms you're sending down to them or whatever you're asking them to do next. So it's so important to keep your finger on that pulse. You're now at a startup. It's a lot smaller a company than the behemoth that was Red Bull, the big global drinks and media company. I wonder how important all this stuff is for smaller companies, for startups, for people. Maybe I've got a manufacturing company and I've got 20 people working for me, or I'm a high-tech startup in your world. How important is it in that startup phase of a company's journey to have that culture really well cemented in? Because of course, you've got the other challenges of, well, just keeping money coming in the door, getting the right bodies on the right seats, finding the investors, doing all that stuff. And to find the investors, we need to show that we've got loads of money coming in and a really strong runway and a great pipeline of customers and products coming out. And maybe some of those things jar far with living to our values or creating a really good culture. So what wins out? Is it the culture that wins out, or is it the getting stuff done that wins out in those early stages?

I mean, again, it's really hard to have a blanket statement, right? Because I think, um, I, I not only work in a startup, but I also have a lot of colleagues in, in other startups, and every environment is different. What I do find in startups though is that the culture is very much ignited by the founder or the founding teams. And I do think depending on what the background of that founder is, it really drives where the prioritization of culture building goes. And so if there's a founder that, you know, has been part of and experienced a strong culture previously, they inherently know the impact of what culture can do for the bottom line and then put that at the forefront of the organization versus, I think, other founders that maybe have haven't experienced that theoretically know the value of it, but then it's hard for them to kind of prioritize and invest in it. And, you know, at a startup, every day is survival. And so, you know, engagement and motivation needs to be firing at like 150% all the time in order to get to the next stage. And I think culture is integral into making sure that, again, especially in startups, you need— if you need your workforce firing at 150%, that that is a priority. And that it's ingrained in every kind of decision-making. I think my current experience is something that I think is probably quite common in the sense that it's not exactly formalized. So, you know, we don't have a stone tablet with all the, you know, the values and the culture, you know, rules, let's put it this way, etched in. However, I think through every single action, and I think this is really important, it's the behavior that really brings to life the culture of the company. And whether that comes from the CEO or any of the leadership team, you're living and breathing that through and through so that there is absolutely zero question about how we're making decisions and how that culture is actually manifested because we're walking the walk every single day. And so while you might not have that stone tablet, you inherently, within that community and that collective, know what is important because you know how the agendas are being prioritized, what type of behavior is rewarded, what type of compensation models are attributed. I mean, it's really through that walking the walk through line that I think builds culture at the inception of very small startups. Again, while you might not have that formalized, I do think that strong cultures are— you inherently know it. Now, as you grow, I think this is where it becomes really tricky because you have to understand at which point do you need to now formalize those cultural pillars? Because with every new hire that wasn't part of that founding team, you need to educate them. You need to bring them into that environment and that collective in a way that they understand. And this is where communication and explanation of those decisions becomes really important. And you almost have to put extra effort, let's put it this way, in explaining why you're making the decisions you are, how you're making the decisions, and and what this means for the company in order to instill, again, that cultural muscle if it's not formalized. But I do think there is a very important point in a startup's growth where you do need to, quote unquote, institutionalize it a little bit more and formalize it. But at a very early stage, I think it's felt and breathed through organically.

Yeah, and I guess just knowing where that tipping point is is probably like the billion-dollar question. Question. When do we have to formalize it? Have we hit that tipping point yet? Is it too early or is it too late? Because it's kind of knife-edge stuff. And I speak to lots of organizations who've just, they're founder-managed and they've just gotten big and suddenly the founder can't get around to the desks with a beer on a Friday afternoon or can't get everyone in a room for a pizza or doesn't know everybody's names or where they come from or how old their kids are. And then it starts to break down. So then I think you're right, it does have to be formalized in some way so that there is that consistent understanding of what we want to be as an organization, how we want to feel around here. Last question, conscious of time. And again, thanks for being here. Last question. What's the one thing— there are many, many cultural drivers and there have been a billion books, maybe not a billion, maybe a million books written on cultural drivers. What do you think is the most important thing to drive great culture in an organization? If you had to pick one cultural driver, what would it be?

Behavior and decision-making. I'm a really big fan of Ben Horowitz, and, you know, I'm sure everyone's familiar with the book, "What You Do Is Who You Are," but it's simple and fundamental to human behavior, right? And how you communicate, make those decisions, and instill the processes and systems to enable that behavior, I think, is a key driver of actually a successful culture that's going to bond people together through times of change and/or break a community in that time of change. And I think a strong tell when you know that you need to institutionalize or formalize that culture or the culture is broken is when people start leaving, not because of some sort of kind of personal reason, but really because there is an inherently cultural aspect that is not functioning well to make them feel bonded to that community. And I think, um, again, if you are walking the walk, you will have a successful culture, and yet that bond will be strong.

Yep, yeah, that sounded very Star Wars, that last line there. The bond will be strong. Um, Kyoko, on that note, on that Star Wars-y note, um, I think we'll leave it there. Thank Thank you very much for coming on the podcast today, for being my guest. It was really interesting talking to you. I loved your insights. And I think there's some really, really useful stuff there that listeners can take away and apply themselves. So, thank you very much, and you have a wonderful day.

Thank you so much, Scott, for having me, and thank you for the wonderful conversation.

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