At Analytical Flavor Systems[0], we have a ridiculous number of traditions... and as Founder/CEO, I have nearly no control over them!
A select subset of our traditions include:
- Daily: 24 hour goals (what did you accomplish in the last 24 hours? what do you plan to accomplish in the next 24 hours?) every morning as a standing meeting, with pour-over coffee (usually client, sometimes... almost clients). We always discuss our analysis of the coffee and the brewer/barista (which rotates through employees) after 24 hour goals.
- Daily: Highs and Lows. What was the best part of your day? What was the worst part of your day? (confusingly, we start with the low, and end on the high note).
- Monday: we have a modified version of the Rebeca Black Friday song... about how much we like to work/twerk on Mondays... This was created, died, and revived a number of ties has the team has grown and changed.
- Friday: Beverage Exchange: We don't hold official panel tastings on Friday's, out of respect for people who have lives outside of the office (this is totally theoretical) - so we exchange and share rare and interesting products we've collected. Considering the company is building AI for the beer, coffee, spirit, and wine industries... we have access to a lot of rare products to share and taste outside of official panel tastings!
- Hazing of new employees: It takes a long time to become an able barista (coffee tastings during 24 hour goals) or capable beer/wine taster. We're very upfront about how much new employees suck until they get it - experience and trust scores are read out, deviations in perceived quality due to brewing skill is listed, and missing variables that needed to be interpolated are explained (in excruciating detail).
Clearly all of these traditions won't continue as we move from 12 to ~40 employees over the next ~18 months... but the important thing is that we've set ourselves up with a strong culture that cares about our clients and cares about the same things our clients care about (these two topics are very different!)
The best piece of advice that I have for other founders: create the seeds for traditions to form, but allow the employees to decide which to water and cultivate - allow them to decide which traditions get proginated and carried forward from generation to generation. And if possible, record past traditions in your Phabricator[2] Wiki.
A select subset of our traditions include:
- Daily: 24 hour goals (what did you accomplish in the last 24 hours? what do you plan to accomplish in the next 24 hours?) every morning as a standing meeting, with pour-over coffee (usually client, sometimes... almost clients). We always discuss our analysis of the coffee and the brewer/barista (which rotates through employees) after 24 hour goals.
- Daily: Highs and Lows. What was the best part of your day? What was the worst part of your day? (confusingly, we start with the low, and end on the high note).
- Monday: we have a modified version of the Rebeca Black Friday song... about how much we like to work/twerk on Mondays... This was created, died, and revived a number of ties has the team has grown and changed.
- Friday: Beverage Exchange: We don't hold official panel tastings on Friday's, out of respect for people who have lives outside of the office (this is totally theoretical) - so we exchange and share rare and interesting products we've collected. Considering the company is building AI for the beer, coffee, spirit, and wine industries... we have access to a lot of rare products to share and taste outside of official panel tastings!
- Hazing of new employees: It takes a long time to become an able barista (coffee tastings during 24 hour goals) or capable beer/wine taster. We're very upfront about how much new employees suck until they get it - experience and trust scores are read out, deviations in perceived quality due to brewing skill is listed, and missing variables that needed to be interpolated are explained (in excruciating detail).
Clearly all of these traditions won't continue as we move from 12 to ~40 employees over the next ~18 months... but the important thing is that we've set ourselves up with a strong culture that cares about our clients and cares about the same things our clients care about (these two topics are very different!)
The best piece of advice that I have for other founders: create the seeds for traditions to form, but allow the employees to decide which to water and cultivate - allow them to decide which traditions get proginated and carried forward from generation to generation. And if possible, record past traditions in your Phabricator[2] Wiki.
[1] www.Gastrograph.com [2] http://phabricator.org/