From time to time I am interviewed for various podcasts or magazine articles about entrepreneurship, business, and the like. Besides the inevitable telling of the infamous Lovesac story, I get asked a lot about company culture–often referred to as “corporate culture,” which I bristle to just by nomenclature alone. (It is for this reason that you’ll never see us refer to “Lovesac Corporate.” Instead we use “Headquarters.”) But I digress…
Company culture is in the eye of the beholder. If people who work at Lovesac think our company culture sucks–then it sucks. If people who work at Lovesac think our company culture is awesome–then it is awesome. What people on the outside think doesn’t matter very much–except, of course, when it comes to attracting talent. Either way, it is my fault. And what’s really crazy is that after all these years, I can confidently say it always both sucks and is awesome at the same time…because you can’t please everybody all the time. Just get used to that.
But I find the perception from the outside is that Lovesac seems to have a really cool, alive, and vibrant culture. So I get asked that question over and over: How do you build company culture? My anti-climactic response: Do stuff. I vlogged about it…
We do some weird things at Lovesac HQ to keep things interesting…
Have an idea? Think of something that sounds fun, or cool, or interesting? Do it. Try it. Spend a buck and go for it. Many “cultural” events don’t cost much or even cost anything. A week ago while I was out of the office visiting Lovesac stores one of our HQ Sac’rs took it upon themselves to throw a spontaneous “Chips and Dips” party at like 3pm on a weekday. They gave a few days’ notice, sent an email around to everyone at HQ and who knew–they had an amazing turnout of chips and dips and people from all departments just hanging out, having a good time on a random Thursday.
You know you have culture when you don’t have to “do” it all.
But until that day–just do things. Whether you are the “boss” or not. We all end up spending most of our waking hours not with the ones we love, but with those we work with. It is kind of sad you think about it–but it is the human condition. With all of the time we must spend at work, it might as well not suck, so be sure about how to go about presenting a companies vision and begin with making your workers not hate the culture they’re surrounded by. After all, as I remind all department heads at Lovesac when we have our Tuesday meeting (which itself is a brick in the wall of our culture here): If our culture at Lovesac rocks–it is your fault. If our culture at Lovesac sucks–its your fault.
The truth is: It’s all our faults. Every last one of us is part of a company culture, and what are we doing to make it not suck.
Get off the couch and go make something happen.
— Shawn
Lovesac Founder & CEO
