Strategy Case

Start Up Challenges - Creating/Building Desired Culture

The Academic Report- Term 2

Submitted By:

Akshay Kumar ---16/241

Alok Kumar Singh---16/244

Swapna Pandharpatte ---16/273

Parichita Kapoor---16/275

Vikas---16/296

How is culture defined for a start-up?

Start-ups evolve as collaborative leadership of two

or more individuals with a shared objective. A

question that often strikes is "Whether start-ups

with two or three people do actually have a culture."

It is the collective behaviour of people that frames

an environment - a way of doing things which is

called culture. Often a start-up begins in dorm rooms

with entrepreneurs working late nights to pull off

errands. This is the first cornerstone of a start-up

which is struggling against lack of human resource.

When a company is in its inception, the collaborators

are involved in a multitude of tasks, and the thought

of putting down a "formal" corporate culture is the

last thing that generally comes across in their mind.

So, it is the actions of these individuals, and the

working environment that they create, which

constitutes the initial corporate culture. It is the

organisation founder, who by virtue of his or her

personality creates a group's culture and this keeps

evolving over the various crises of growth and

survival by coping with problems like adaptation,

working set of relationships, etc. Every person hails

from a different background and prior experience,

and hence, tends to modify the organisation culture

according to prior perception. Only a strongly

grounded organisation can help new employees

realise what the organisation truly stands for, so that

they can imbibe the values and work towards the

common goal of organisation. For this, it is essential

that the founder lays down the core mission and

vision of the organisation. This is not just to be put

down in pen and paper, but is to be reflected in

every day to day action and also the strategic

planning of the organisation.

As the first step, it is essential that the founder lays

down the desired culture from the very day of

inception. While dissents are usually good for

organisation, the first set of employees will be laying

down this desired culture. It is important that the

first employees impart consensus to the founder's

criteria of allocating power, creating an amicable

working environment, criteria of work standards,

rewards and penalties, and most importantly, the

ideology of the organisation. It is this initial group

which later creates the criteria of inclusion and

exclusion. For example, a founder who wishes to

have a work group that pull out hard all-nighters will

have to initially collaborate with people who agree

to the idea and realise the importance of this action.

Only a close-minded group of individuals will be able

to understand the essence of hard work in times of

need, so that they give in the requisite efforts when

needed. Any dissent among the work-force will be

damaging when a crisis arises in the very first

inception stage, though a well debated discussion

becomes imperative when the organisation grows

later.

As the organisation size increases, the founders need

to organise the employees for their specific activities

in the company. The founders cannot spell down

specific job descriptions for each and every role in

the company, so this requires the employees to be

flexible. The employees will appreciate the need to

be flexible only if the founders had given them some

head-room to be flexible in the first stage. At the

same time, the founders themselves need to give up

the tendencies to rein power. They need to

communicate their dream, and make it clear to

employees what they stand for - profits, sales

volumes, customer relation or a preferential

sequence of one over the other. How to do this is

the difficult part, since it is easy to communicate

one's ideas, but it is difficult for the other person to

imbibe them. This can be achieved by training

employees.