Process and culture

Strong culture = less process

To stop people breaking stuff: make a process for it. Want to make people act responsibly: make a process for it. Tired of telling people about something? Make a process for it.

For any single scenario you can name it’ll be easier to create a process for it than build a culture that handles it automatically. But each process is a tiny cut away from the freedom that you want your team to enjoy.

I take his point, but I also think that some processes are not only inevitable, but downright positive. There should be a process for handling payroll. There should be a process for handling promotions. Leaving that to culture might sound nice and nimble, but it could also lead to unintentional bias and unfairness.

But let's leave those kind of operational processes aside and focus on process and culture when it comes to design and engineering. Cameron's point is well taken here. Surely you want people to just know the way things are done? Surely you want people to just get on with doing the work without putting hurdles in their way?

On the face of it, yes. If you're trying to scale design at your organisation, then every extra bit of process is going to slow down your progress.

But what if speed isn't the most important metric of success when it comes to scaling design? You've got to make sure you're scaling the right things.

Mark writes:

This is a post in defence of process. Yes, I know what you're thinking: 'urgh, process is a thing put in place to make up for mediocre teams'; or 'prioritise discussion over documentation'; or 'I get enough red tape in other parts of my life'.

The example he gives is undeniably a process that will slow things down ...deliberately.

Whenever someone asks me to do something that I think seems ill-conceived in some way, I ask them to write it down. That's it. Because writing is high effort. Making sentences is the easy bit, it's the thinking I want them to do. By considering their request it slows them down. Maybe 30% of the time or something, they come back and say 'oh, that thing I asked you to do, I've had a think and it's fine, we don't need to do it'.

I've seen this same tactic employed in standards bodies. Somebody bursts into a group and says "I've got a great idea—we should make this a thing!" The response, no matter what the idea is, is to say "Document use-cases." It's a stumbling block, and also a bit of a test—if they do come back with use-cases, the idea can be taken seriously; the initial enthusiasm needs to be backed up with hard graft.

(On a personal level, I sometimes use a little trick when it comes to email. If someone sends me a short email that would require a long response from me, I'll quickly fire back a clarifying question: "Quick question: did you mean X or Y?" Now the ball is back in their court. If they respond swiftly with an answer to my question, then they've demonstrated their commitment and I honour their initial request.)

Anyway, it sounds like Cameron is saying that process is bad, and Mark is saying process can be good. Cody Cowan from Postlight thinks they're both right:

To put it bluntly: people, not process, are the problem.

Even so, he acknowledges Cameron's concern:

One of the biggest fears that people have about process is that something new is going to disrupt their work, only to be replaced by yet another rule or technique.

I think we can all agree that pointlessly cumbersome processes are bad. The disagreement is about whether all processes are inherently bad, or whether some processes are not only necessary, but sometimes even beneficial.

When Cameron talks about the importance of company culture, he knows whereof he speaks. He's been part of Canva's journey from a handful of people to hundreds of people. They've managed to scale their (excellent) culture along the way. That's quite an achievement—scaling culture is really, really challenging. Scaling design is hard. Scaling culture is even harder.

But you know what's even more challenging than scaling culture? Changing culture.

What if your company didn't start with a great culture to begin with? What if you're not Canva? What if you're not AirBnB? What are your options then?

You can't create a time travel machine to go back to the founding of the company and ensure a good culture from the outset.

You can't shut down your existing company and create a new company from scratch, this time with a better culture.

You've got to work with what you've got. That doesn't mean you can't change your company culture, but it's not going to be easy. Culture is pretty far down the stack of pace layers—it's slow to change. But you can influence culture by changing something that's less slow to change. I would argue the perfect medium for this is ...process.

Once you know what values you're trying to embed into your culture, create processes that amplify and reward those values. I totally understand the worry that these processes will reduce autonomy and freedom, but I think that only applies if the company already has a strong culture of autonomy and freedom. If you're trying to create a culture of autonomy and freedom, then—as counter-intuitive as it may seem—you can start by putting processes in place.

Then, over time, those processes can seep into the day-to-day understanding of how things are done. Process dissolves into culture. It's a long game to play, but as Cameron points out, that's the nature of culture change:

Where culture pays off is in the long run. It’s hard work: defining the culture, hiring for the culture and communicating the culture again, and again, and again. But if you want to make a company where people are empowered, passionate, and champions of your organisation then it’s the only path forward.

This was originally posted on my own site.