86 | From Startups to Fortune 500: Lessons in Leadership & Culture | Jo Dutta

Building Better Cultures

Startups are known for being fluid, nimble and open to experimentation. In this episode of Building Better Cultures, Host Scott McInnes’ guest is someone uniquely positioned to explain the mindset and best practices under which these ventures thrive. Chief Marketing Officer for MUSH, a Chicago-based food company that has experienced phenomenal growth, Jo shares not only her from-the-front observations in the start-up world but also links them back to some of the leadership experiences she has gleaned while at Fortune 500 companies such as PepsiCo. It turns out that early-stage companies and established enterprises alike have hard-earned lessons to learn – and to teach.

Startups done right embrace healthy workplace practices immediately out of the gate, even well before any formal HR function has been codified. Cultures that prioritize psychological safety, practice empathetic leadership and value internal communication set themselves up for the smoothest possible transition to maturity and scalability. Jo offers strategies for fostering employee engagement and building brand good will. She also describes the importance of building a “fine to fail” workplace environment in which leaders not only permit but encourage experimentation, risk and missteps.

Jo and Scott also get granular about exactly when the time is right to introduce a more formal HR function into the start-up structure. It’s a transition that can be tough to make, but less so if leaders are equipped with the wisdom and perspective Jo has developed over her highly successful career across enterprises of all sizes and styles. Enjoy this lively, informative conversation!

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Scott opens the conversation by eliciting some of Jo’s origin story.
• After many years working at established companies, like PepsiCo, Jo has found the high-growth startup environment at MUSH creative and exciting.
• What does an employee-obsessed culture look like? Leadership and vision set the stage.
• People want to be involved with MUSH because of the sense of community that is central to the workplace and fosters the organic way in which partnerships are formed.
• Bigger organizations versus small: Does size matter when it comes to employee engagement? Not necessarily, if the right principles and practices are deployed.
• Some ways Jo sees that employee engagement can be improved:
• • Employee ownership – Adopt a cooperative model.
  • Employee longevity: Commit and stay close to the consumer.
  • Empower employees to do the right thing (even to the point of creating a P&L line item to underwrite acts of kindness to customers).
• How does Jo translate customer obsession to the back-office functions?
• • Make sure that – regardless of role – all employees spend time on the front lines with the consumers.
  • Integrating with customers is both fun and it generates passion for the business.
  • Leaders need to understand who their consumers are and then empower employees to deliver on that promise.
• Scott shares an anecdote about Haagen Dazs that encapsulates the power of customer touch and good will.
• Jeff Bezos’s Day 1 Concept: It’s essential to keep thinking like a startup because it keeps enterprises agile, experimental and hungry. Does Jo agree? Yes, and here are three reasons why:
• • Beginners’ mindset: Drawn from the Buddhist concept of “shoshin,” it refers to an attitude of openness, eagerness and a blank slate.
  • Failure as Data Acquisition: When leaders embrace mistakes, they open a path for creative problem-solving and advancement throughout the workplace culture.
  • Even if you don’t know how, just start: Successful startups keep moving forward.
• Jo believes that when an employee is not a good internal fit – and for whatever reason not carrying their weight plus some – it’s incumbent upon leaders to act swiftly and decisively.
• Startups don’t have values-driven recruiting because they don’t yet have an HR manual at all. Rather, it’s about building an initial core A team.
• Start-up growth at some point depends on building out from the central players, which requires a concept Jo learned from this management article: Give Away Your Legos.
• At what point in the transition from startup to mature business do questions of shared values, workplace culture and internal communications come into play? Jo shares some basic parameters:
• • When your staff grows beyond 20 employees.
  • When you’re no longer able to turn around and get quick answers from the collective hive, it’s time to start writing things down.
  • When you get to about 150 in staffing, a robust HR function become essential.
• What can organizations and leaders within more established companies do to promote psychological safety in the workplace?
• • It has to start from the top! Leadership sets the stage.
  • Build moments of gratitude and solidarity into the week.
  • Always have curiosity. Openness breeds vital, collaborative workplace cultures.
• Test before you invest. In addition to being nimble, startups have to be smart, which means trying small-batch products before committing to the large.
• Experimentation means giving employees permission to innovate, fail and try again.
• Jo’s best advice for how astute leaders can best help their people to shine:
• • Understand who your employees are, what motivates and excites them.
  • Locate the right person for the right job.
  • Reassure managers in a rapidly scaling enterprise that it’s okay to share tasks and delegate roles.
  • Reinforce that there is room to fail and recover.
  • Share the load: Let team members in on challenges. It offers them an opportunity to take ownership – and buy-in breeds loyalty and commitment.
• We all get to the summit – but it’s the hardness, the toughness and grit – that make for the most satisfying result.

ABOUT JO DUTTAJo @LinkedIn and @camillab on twitter

Company Website: www.eatmush.com

MUSH on Instagram: @MUSH; on Twitter @MUSHFoods; and on Facebook @MushFoods

ABOUT SCOTT MCINNESLearn more about Scott McInnes, your host and the Founder and Director of Inspiring Change, by clicking here.

ABOUT WORKVIVOTo discover Workvivo, a workplace communication and engagement platform that offers seamless digital integration, please click here.