Management & Setting a Culture

Setting & keeping culture is one of the more difficult things regarding management, yet it also seems crucial for long-term success. In many organisations, group houses & events that I attend, I see similar failure modes where the leaders don’t take responsibility for how people behave towards each other due to respect for people’s opinions. 

If you’re running an event, break some bones; don’t be afraid to tell the big shot to stop talking by reminding the person to follow the pre-defined conversation norms. If a person isn’t cleaning up after themselves in the house, be a bitch and tell them in a voice that lets them know that there will be consequences if they don’t do it next time. If someone is subtly belittling someone else in your organisation, you, as a leader, need to talk to the belittling person and ask them to quit it.

If you’re leading something, YOU are responsible, YOU need to make sure everyone is doing as they should, and that is it. I’m not telling you to micromanage, but I’m instead telling you to uphold a set of norms with an iron fist. Specific techniques make this easier on everyone’s emotions, as it can be hard to smack someone in the face nicely.

First and foremost, you should set clearly defined and pre-written rules for behaviour to follow. This allows you to have a document you can point people towards; if the finer subtleties behind the rules are explained, even better. I recommend the books The Art of Gathering & Radical Candor to find some good practices for this. 

Secondly, choose the right people jackass! You can’t have a strict bigshot rambling into your creative brainstorming group at work and expect the thing to go well. The smaller the group is, the more the impact from specific individuals is. Don’t just invite anyone willy-nilly; choose the right people & be risk-averse when it comes to this. One person can ruin an entire event.

Thirdly, encourage others to call each other out for not following the gathering rules. You are not omnipotent, and you will miss things. Set reminding people of the regulations as part of the rules, and you will avoid the bystander effect. 

Lastly, iteration with your team members and the people in the gatherings you host is crucial for increasing your proficiency over time. Overall leading a gathering usually doesn’t come naturally, and the balance is tricky, but learning the art of gathering seems very useful to me.