How to Nurture a Great Company Culture as You Scale Up

Key Summary

• The Challenge of Scaling: Business growth naturally introduces complexity, distance between leadership and employees, and new layers of management, which can dilute company culture and vision if left unmanaged.
• The Solution—Brand Anchors: Companies can successfully preserve and scale their culture by implementing specific foundational assets rather than letting growth erode employee engagement.

The larger your business grows, the more difficult it is to maintain a highly engaged culture in which employees are excited about their work and committed to helping the organization meet its business and branding goals. Why? Because growth automatically introduces complexity in the workplace and causes the distance between the boardroom and the front line to grow as the workplace head count increases.

As the business scales, instead of experiencing the passion of the founders firsthand, new hires receive guidance from other employees who may not have that same passion for the business. Instead of senior leadership being able to pull the entire team together at a moment’s notice for all-hands huddles to communicate important information and updates, senior leadership now has to send (often impersonal) emails and memos rather than meeting face-to-face — losing out on opportunities to strengthen workplace bonds between leadership and employees. 

Out of necessity, the workforce is structured into new departments (and sometimes additional locations), and new layers of management are brought on to oversee them, with each new layer increasing the chance that the senior leadership’s vision for the company gets lost in translation.

For founders and senior leadership teams, navigating these adverse symptoms of growth can feel like making your way through a minefield blindfolded. Fortunately, keeping your culture intact as you scale is solvable. Just take a look at companies like Southwest Airlines, Patagonia, Ritz-Carlton, and Zappos — all recognized for their highly engaged culture — and you’ll quickly realize that culture does not have to become a casualty of growth.

After spending nearly two decades in the branding industry helping companies build brands loved by employees and customers (in that order), I’ve identified a handful of assets with immense potential to help companies anchor their brands as they scale. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I refer to them as “brand anchors.” Below are the top three brand anchors that I recommend to my senior leadership clients who are experiencing high growth in their organizations and who want to preserve their culture as they scale. 

1. Inspiring Purpose

The first brand anchor a company should have is an inspiring purpose that articulates why it exists beyond making money. When a company has an inspiring purpose that resonates with employees, they are more likely to feel emotionally connected to the organization, find meaning in their roles, and focus their energy on a single goal.

For instance, Nike exists to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world. Because they understand the company’s “why,” employees constantly challenge themselves to create products, technologies, and experiences that inspire athletes and help them perform better.

In effect, Nike’s “why” anchored a culture of innovation, even as it scaled from a scrappy startup to the business leviathan it is now. If Nike’s purpose was just to sell more shoes, its employees would never have been inspired to pursue the innovations that have made Nike the business it is today, with an estimated 30,000 patents for innovations that have helped equip athletes to perform at their peak.

If you’re wondering why having an inspiring purpose can help anchor an organization, the answer lies in the power of engagement. Research by Gallup has shown that employees with a strong sense of purpose at work are 5.6 times as likely to be engaged in their jobs as those with a low sense of purpose.

2. Crystal-Clear Vision

The second brand anchor I recommend companies invest in is what I call a crystal-clear vision. If a company’s purpose clarifies why it exists, a crystal-clear vision explains where the company is going. Research suggests that clarity of vision is linked to positive outcomes, such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and employee engagement.

One of the most powerful examples of a crystal-clear vision comes from President John F. Kennedy’s challenge to NASA in 1961, when he declared: “This nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” 

JFK’s vision was clear, specific, and easy for anyone to understand, with absolutely no room for ambiguity. Every scientist, engineer, technician, and support employee involved in the space program knew exactly what the vision was and what they were working toward. More importantly, they embraced the vision and worked together to make it a reality. 

3. Compelling Core Values

The third brand anchor I recommend is having compelling core values. While an inspiring purpose clarifies why the organization exists and a crystal-clear vision explains where the business is going, compelling core values clarify how the organization will get there and how employees should behave along the journey. Research suggests that shared organizational values provide meaning and purpose to work, which ultimately results in better workplace performance.

A good example of how compelling core values, once embraced by employees, support an organization’s purpose and vision is Southwest Airlines, a company renowned for its legendary customer service. Southwest has been ranked first by JD Power in customer satisfaction among economy travelers for five consecutive years. It has also received dozens more awards for its customer service over the years.

Southwest’s purpose, “to connect people to what’s important in their lives through friendly, reliable, and low-cost air travel,” explains why the company exists, while its vision, “to be the world’s most loved, most efficient, and most profitable airline,” clarifies where the organization is going.

Southwest has three core values, which the company has chosen to express as its Employee Promise: “I will demonstrate my Warrior Spirit by striving to be my best and never giving up. I will show my Servant’s Heart by delivering Legendary Customer Service and treating others with respect. I will express my Fun-LUVing Attitude by not taking myself too seriously and embracing my Southwest Family.” 

These core values are also directly responsible for Southwest’s well-deserved reputation for off-the-charts customer service, a highly engaged culture, and employees who are more than willing to go the extra mile for passengers.

Maintaining a highly engaged culture as you scale can be challenging, but it’s not impossible. If you want to anchor your culture in place, try implementing these three brand anchors across your organization.

Start with “why” by articulating an inspiring purpose. Let your people know where you’re taking the organization by sharing a crystal clear vision. And be clear about what behaviors are expected of employees by documenting and reinforcing your compelling core values. Chances are that if you do a good job of implementing these brand anchors into your workplace, you’ll be in a much better position to maintain your culture as you grow.

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This article was written by Ron Johnson from Fast Company and was legally licensed through the DiveMarketplace by Industry Dive. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@industrydive.com.