Management consultant Peter Drucker popularised the quote “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Co-Founder and Director of Hatch Works Brindha Selvadurai believes both are equally important.

In a recent LMDtv interview, she noted: “Strategy is just a plan to execute the company’s vision; you need people to execute it. If your vision can be executed with robots, then you don’t need culture. Yet, the moment you involve people, culture becomes important.”

Values are of equal importance. “Culture is a byproduct of your value system,” she said, highlighting that aligning values among employees, leaders, investors and other stakeholders is critical.

While an organisation’s culture is often difficult to define, Selvadurai emphasised the need to be intentional instead of ambiguous: “I think ambiguity anywhere is a recipe for disaster. So in addition to having a great purpose and mission, it’s equally important to be intentional about the culture and values you want in your business.”

“The process of writing it down gives you a lot of clarity in terms of how you want to run your business. I also think that when you write it down, you can stop bad culture and fix it when it derails,” she added.

An organisation’s culture has to be set by the founder at the beginning, in Selvadurai’s view: “Often in the early stages, the business is led by example, based on the founder’s vision of how he or she wants to set the culture.”

She added that this culture will evolve as the team grows and the business expands.

There can be many traits of a good culture, and Selvadurai believes the top three are humility, a pro-experimenting attitude and feedback orientation. “Being humble is so important – recognising that you don’t know everything and are there to learn,” she explained.

“Secondly and mostly within the startup space, fostering a culture of experimenting – learning, unlearning and relearning – is important,” Selvadurai said, noting that “since then, you’re telling the team that it’s okay to fail but instead of calling it failing, you’ll call it experimenting.”

As for feedback, she asserted that “embracing a culture where everyone – from the receptionist to the founder – can give and receive feedback is really good for a startup.” She added that this will also enable everyone to be trans­parent and work collaboratively.

Selvadurai cited red flags to watch for regarding culture, starting with “people who have self-interests and their own agendas.”

Hustle culture is another red flag to avoid, as there seems to always be a sense of urgency in startups. She spoke about how urgency and the need to be driven should never be at the expense of the team, and their mental health and wellness.

Another problematic characteristic, she pointed out, is being over-focussed on relationships and friendships as opposed to being more growth oriented.

She elaborated: “When the focus is on relationships, you don’t hold people accountable. People often say ‘it feels like they’re my family.’ I don’t necessarily agree that this is good because sometimes in families, we think that we can do anything and they have to put up with us because they’re family. And so there is no accountability.”

“In any business, startup or otherwise, you need to recognise that you’re there in a professional capacity and while you can be kind, you can also hold someone accountable,” Selvadurai maintained.

“A business should be fun to run because it has so many stresses,” she said, adding: “So building a group of people who value a good culture and enjoy the place they work in is important.”

“If they really love coming to work, you will get their heart and soul. They should love the work they do but you should also create an environment for them to work and thrive by instilling a culture that aligns with their values,” she stressed.

She concluded: “You can hire people to do work; but to do really good work, you really need a good culture.”