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Have you ever wondered how important culture is to a company and whether having a cultural fit in a company matters? According to Glen Hellman, culture matters, and in his post below, he shares his experiences and explains why. 

 is a Principal at Driven Forward LLC., a firm that supports entrepreneurs and venture investors by providing strategic guidance, interim executive leadership services, and executive coaching. In addition, he is a mentor for the Washington, D.C. Founder Institute, which is currently accepting applications

The blog post "Your Company Will Win Or Lose On Culture" originally appeared on Glen's Forward Thinking blog. An excerpt has been republished below with permission. 

I’ve been working at Surefire Social and I feel like I’ve found my way home after years of wandering.

Why? Because it's a startup? No. 

Because it's a technology company? No. 

Because I believe I can make a difference? No. 

All those things are true and yet the reason this feels like home is because of the culture. Not just that it’s a strong culture, the job I left to get here had a good culture.

What's different is that this strong culture fits me. It's a cultural fit. The cultural ideals, of hard work, making a difference, complete honesty/transparency and a genuine caring about the team are a match with my own personal cultural ideals. According to Forbes over 89% of hiring failures are due in some part to bad cultural fit. Culture is like a glove in a murder trial…. If the glove doesn’t fit you must acquit or maybe just quit.

Companies depend on the team to win. Everyone has a role and everyone must play that role to their maximum performance and when the team fit in, when we’re all members of the same tribe, when there is a cultural match, then the team operates in a zone of trust. Where there is trust, where there is knowledge that the others on your team have your back, that you are all part of the same tribe… there is alignment. When the tribe is aligned then effort is spent on the productive activities of serving our clients, beating the crap of our competitors  and little time is wasted covering our butts, dotting our I’s and watching our backs. 

I was married for 24 years. I knew after 10 that it was a bad cultural fit. Worrying about the wrong things kept me married.  I should have left earlier because today I’m married again in an 8 year cultural fit relationship and the difference of being aligned is unmeasurable.  I’m happy, I’m productive, and I’m healthier. That’s because I feel safe and part of something.

Staying in a marriage or a job that is not the right cultural fit, where there is constant strife,and misalignment is unhealthy. Literally it will kill you. Cultural misalignment leads to stress, higher cortisol levels, inflammation, higher blood pressure and heart disease.

Now don’t get me wrong…. I feel stress at work.  I need to perform, we need to grow, we need to sell. But it’s a different level of stress because we - the team are all working together on this. We’re all pulling the oars and no one needs to beat a drum or crack a whip. We’re rowing fast, together. If we fall behind there’s no finger pointing… no focus on blame, there’s working on a solution… a “how can we increase our speed,” conversation.

When we win a big deal, there’s no, "I won." In fact after a recent win everyone was passing the credit like they blame is passed on a sinking ship.

Leaders, take heed…. culture matters. You must define it, celebrate it, hire for it.

For more insights from Glen Hellman, and more startup experts, apply to the Washington, D.C. Founder Institute today!

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