The culture that helped your business grow won’t preserve itself. Every person you add brings a new set of experiences, assumptions and habits. Unless you are clear about the way things are done around here, they have to fill in the blanks.

New employees can’t learn your culture by remembering what you did five years ago. They weren’t there. You have to tell them the stories that explain it.

Culture is more uncovered than created. When you document it, look for the decisions and experiences that shaped the business. Ask founders and longtime employees what happened, why they acted as they did and what those choices tell today’s team about the company’s values.

Find the stories that explain your culture

At a credit union I worked with, a member was robbed while traveling. Employees canceled his cards and helped him access cash. They also knew him well enough to give him a new wallet with a chain attached when he returned. He loved the gesture so much that he sent a handwritten thank-you note.

We included that story in the credit union’s culture book. It showed new employees what a personal connection looked like in practice and the freedom they had to create connections with members.

At a manufacturing client, the founder’s stories were essential to our culture documentation. He once arrived at the shop to find customers who had driven through the night waiting for parts. Another time, he ran machines through the night to produce enough to sell so he could make his bank payments.

Capturing those stories helps new employees understand where the company’s values came from and what those values ask of them today. The founder remembers what was at stake. A person joining years later needs that history explained.

Growth changes how people learn the culture

In a small team, employees are close enough to the owner see how decisions are made. They watch how you handle a customer complaint, follow through on a commitment or respond when someone makes a mistake. They learn from what you do repeatedly.

Growth changes that access, and now a new employee works with a recently-hired supervisor. It gets even harder when new employees are brought into a second location while your office is somewhere else. New people need to know how to act without being able to ask what the leader would do.

The culture has to travel through other people. If it lives only in your instincts, everyone is left to their own interpretation of it. You get several versions of what you believed was one clear standard.

Telling people to use good judgment leaves them guessing the standard by which good judgment is evaluated? The stories behind your values give you specific choices to explain and discuss.

Connect the stories to today’s values

Once you have captured a story, explain how the choices made in that moment connect to the values of the company today. Name the value and describe what living it required of the people in the story.

Then connect it to the work employees do now. What does that value require of someone in this role? What decisions can they make on their own? When do they need help?

For example, if you value keeping commitments, describe what someone should do when a promised deadline is at risk. Who needs to know? How early? What should the employee bring to that conversation?

Ask employees where your explanation is incomplete. The person doing the work sees situations the owner doesn’t. Their questions help you explain how the value applies to decisions people face today.

Use the stories where people learn the culture

A culture document or video gives you a place to preserve these stories. Leaders then have to use them to teach the values and expectations behind them.

In hiring, ask for examples of how someone has handled a situation that tests a value. In onboarding, share a company story and discuss what that value looks like in the employee’s role. In coaching, use a recent decision to discuss how the employee applied it.

That is how culture connects to the people processes in your business. It gives leaders something specific to teach, recognize and correct.

Leaders have to meet the same standard. If a manager ignores a commitment and nobody addresses it, employees have a stronger lesson than the words in the culture document.

Equip more people to make decisions

Documented culture allows more people to make decisions without involving you in every one. It gives them a shared understanding of what the company values, and how those values should guide their choices.

The stories behind those values make that guidance concrete. Employees can understand why people made important decisions in the past and apply those lessons to situations they face today.

When people understand the culture and have the authority to act, they can serve customers, solve problems and make commitments that reflect what the company stands for. That allows the business to grow without having you involved in every decision.

Find the stories your team needs to hear

Find the stories that explain how your company became what it is. Ask founders and longtime employees about the customers they went out of their way to help, the difficult decisions they faced and the commitments they refused to abandon. Capture what happened and why they acted as they did.

Then connect those stories to the values of the company today. Explain how the choices made in those moments shaped your values and what those values require of employees now.

Your culture can survive apart from your personal reach when someone who has never worked beside you understands what the business stands for and can act on it. New employees need to understand where the culture came from and their responsibility for carrying it forward.

If your team is growing and your standards still depend on people asking you, let’s talk about how to make your culture clear enough for others to lead it.

Discuss your culture challenge with Nathan

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