In typical 37signals fashion, the wisdom in these pages is edgy yet

CHAPTER
 
CULTURE

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You don't create a culture
Instant cultures are artificial cultures. They're big bangs made of mission
statements, declarations, and rules. They are obvious, ugly, and plastic.
Artificial culture is paint. Real culture is patina.
You don't create a culture. It happens. This is why new companies don't
have a culture. Culture is the byproduct of consistent behavior. If you
encourage people to share, then sharing will be built into your culture. If
you reward trust, then trust will be built in. If you treat customers right, then
treating customers right becomes your culture.
Culture isn't a foosball table or trust falls. It isn't policy. It isn't the
Christmas party or the company picnic. Those are objects and events, not
culture. And it's not a slogan, either. Culture is action, not words.
So don't worry too much about it. Don't force it. You can't install a
culture. Like a fine scotch, you've got to give it time to develop.

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Decisions are temporary
"But what if ...?" "What happens when ...?" "Don't we need to plan for ...?"
Don't make up problems you don't have yet. It's not a problem until it's a
real problem. Most of the things you worry about never happen anyway.
Besides, the decisions you make today don't need to last forever. It's easy
to shoot down good ideas, interesting policies, or worthwhile experiments
by assuming that whatever you decide now needs to work for years on end.
It's just not so, especially for a small business. If circumstances change,
your decisions can change. Decisions are temporary.
At this stage, it's silly to worry about whether or not your concept will
scale from five to five thousand people (or from a hundred thousand to 100
million people). Getting a product or service off the ground is hard enough
without inventing even more obstacles. Optimize for now and worry about
the future later.
The ability to change course is one of the big advantages of being small.
Compared with larger competitors, you're way more capable of making
quick, sweeping changes. Big companies just can't move that fast. So pay
attention to today and worry about later when it gets here. Otherwise you'll
waste energy, time, and money fixating on problems that may never
materialize.

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