Culture Is King - But How Do We Cultivate It with More Work and Less Time than Ever?

Company culture is more important than ever. But with the pitch churn accelerating, stagnating wages, growing volumes of output and the demand for always-on creative, fostering appealing, healthy and productive cultures is a tough challenge that goes beyond any one company. 

Joining Little Black Book’s CEO Matt Cooper in Cannes today were four industry leaders who built and nurtured cultures that can survive today’s pressure: Jake Brody, senior managing director at Accenture Song; Joe Staples, CCO and partner at Mother; Nicole Taylor, SVP and head of Our Lego Agency (OLA) at Lego; Steph Bruning, global marketing director at Framestore.

“Culture is crucial,” Jake said when reflecting on the impact it can make on a company. Accenture Song, the world’s largest tech-powered creative group is part of Accenture, which has over 700,000 employees, so building a working ethos that “makes a big place feel small” is a critical focus for him, especially in a relatively new agency network. It’s the key to attracting and retaining talent, according to him. However, according to Nicole, that isn’t the case for Lego. The company’s culture is so well defined that, coming from an agency background, she’s enjoyed how clear it is.

Speaking about how covid and the changing ways of our working environment had impacted the intricacies of cultivating culture, Steph said, “We’re working hard to make it clearer”. While culture used to be in the oxygen employees breathed in the Framestore offices, hybrid working means that it needs to be cascaded more proactively, even when people usually work two to four days in the office a week.

Everyone enjoys being in the Framestore office because people were missing out on bumping into people in the lifts, shared Steph. Catching up with people you don’t have to see in your meetings has a value that we’re all familiar with. “There’s magic in those collisions,” Jake said, agreeing with her.

Both Joe at Mother and Nicole at Our Lego Agency, the in-house agency at Lego, admitted that they do mandate a certain amount of office time. “Lego recognises the power of humanity,” said Nicole, admitting that being present does physically help their creative work, especially as the Danish play company built a new campus during the covid pandemic, which is fully equipped to facilitate friendship and community among employees who often move from other parts of the world to Denmark.

Mother actually built two new offices (in Los Angeles and New York) during the pandemic, giving them an opportunity to build the new working culture into them, said Joe. After surveying employees, they built workspaces that inspire people to come to the office. For example, they found that people like doing their laundry when they’re working from home, so now Mother’s offices have washers and dryers for people to use.

Although many leaders at Accenture Song manage hundreds of employees, Jake stressed the importance of informal reaching out from leaders – something that’s encouraged across the network.

“We talk about culture but at work, we talk about ‘cult’,” mused Joe. Anyone who knows Mother will agree that it’s true. The people there have their jargon, which helps shape the way they approach work. In fact, Joe noticed they have their own Holy Trinity that people say all the time, always in the same order: “Do the best work. Be nice to people. Make a living.”

Lego’s culture manifests through acts of play, as will surprise no one. “We’re a play brand,” said Nicole. Before any meeting, employees at Our Lego Agency engage in some sort of play, whether with bricks or words. It’s a bit “organised fun” at times, admitted Nicole, but coming to the role relatively recently, she’s found it serves creativity well. “Children are our role models,” she said. So acting more like them makes sense for the brand.

A similar process at Accenture Song is a habit of beginning every meeting with good news, both personal and professional. Jake says it “settles the temperature” of a conversation.

Joe remembers how it was the culture of the agency that first drew him to Mother. Watching from afar he knew it would be fun. “You could tell from the work coming out that these men and women were having good days.” The process of creativity is similar to play in itself, he noted, riffing on Nicole’s reflections. Considering the conversations people usually have at Cannes Lions, he mused: “We come here to celebrate outcome. And nobody talks about the process.”

Often, it’s the process of creativity that helps people to enjoy their work and do better work as a result. As such, Framestore has found that through the training it’s offered employees in creative but not immediately relevant skills like life drawing, or fostering community via its various sports teams and societies. Accenture Song also has a complex curriculum to help guide people through their career development.

At Mother, education can be esoteric but will feed creativity. They may have a lecture called ‘15 Minutes on the Future of Water’, for example.

Joe is conscious of monitoring the culture at Mother, ensuring it’s a healthy environment. They were reassured recently when a junior colleague flipped the bird and – jokingly – told a senior colleague to “go fuck yourself,” he said. It’s proof that people feel free to speak their minds. Part of that is the style of leadership at the agency, he said. “When leaders show weakness, anyone can show weakness.”

Nicole agreed that the culture of play fosters a similar atmosphere. “Being a bit of a fool sometimes can really take the pressure off,” she said.

The discussion ended on the ‘how’. All four companies on the panel have multiple locations, but each has a distinct culture, with local variations, across them all. Joe considered a metaphor derived from his hippie parents, who taught him to make yoghurt. You take some culture and add it to milk. “As a kid, I was taught that the culture’s gonna teach the milk how to be yoghurt.” When Mother opens a new office there are always teachers to help set it up from other offices. They help the new culture to grow with the right flavour. That’s how a good company culture grows and travels that world, he suggested.