In my previous birth, when I had a Garage Startup, the following incident illustrated the compelling need for Shared Values in an Organization.
A bright guy, let us call him, Rockstar Engineer, who worked with large telecommunication companies came to work with me. We worked on a Stack that will interact with a Voice-Over-IP Hardware, which was also under development, at the time.
After a few months, when we were almost done, I summoned the Rockstar Engineer.
"Will our Software work on the day, the Hardware arrives?"
"Well, Plan a month for integration testing and making fixes, after the hardware arrives."
"No. I am expecting it to work on the very same day, when the Shipment arrives."
"Are you kidding? It ain't gonna fly."
"No. I am serious."
"Well that is not how things work in telecommunications. It takes months for integration."
"I don't care about norms. I believe we can make it work. If you can't figure out, I will tell you how?"
The argument became more intense in the next few days and I got the attached flame email from the Rockstar Engineer.
I chose to ignore it for the time-being and waited for the Hardware to arrive.
The Hardware arrives on the appointed day, they unwrap it, provision it and tada!.
The very first conference call worked without any sort of tweaks. I still vividly remember the pure joy in the Rockstar Engineer's voice, when he conveyed the good news on the Phone.
The belief, I have is, "Passion dispels Constraints". The Rockstar Engineer was bright, open-minded and diligent, yet was blinded and conditioned by his past experience.
It dawned on me that, without shared core values, which defines an organization's culture, goals(even, if they were common) are hard to achieve and almost impossible to Scale elegantly.
As Peter Drucker wrote, "Every Enterprise requires commitment to common goals and shared values. Without such commitment there is no enterprise; there is only a mob."
If you want a practical example of Culture, you should attend the Zappos 2-day Bootcamp.
P.S.: The Rockstar Engineer is a great friend since then and we often joke about the email.
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