Do I need a culture to startup?

I pondered this question as I built my brand playbook for Lexicona.  My friend designed the lovely Lexicona logo, but of course the logo didn’t get me very far.  It’s always irked me when people call logo design ‘branding’ when quite frankly it’s the easy bit.  Branding involves hard yards, writing down who you are, why you exist, what you offer and why anyone should care.

The even harder bit is what comes next – bringing the brand to life; a painting-the-Forth-Road-Bridge task.

But as I put some hard yards in, wracking me brain to build (v1) of the Lexicona brand, I wondered whether culture as the internal manifestation of the external brand is really necessary when you’re a one-person band.

Probably not.  But why?  Mainly because you’ve only got yourself to deal with; you don’t have to align the team or set a bar everyone needs to meet.  Just yourself.

But unless you have the self-discipline of the Dalai Lama, you may need to set some ground rules for yourself, some ways you want to work, a few commitments you want to make to yourself. 

“And given your brand is you, why can’t your culture be you – with a bit of who you want to be for good measure?”

So, I set about putting some thought into the Lexicona culture.

I thought the glass half empty approach would be a good place to start. 

All the things I worry about that I know aren’t good for me, like:

1. Sitting in a room, perfecting things rather than getting them in front of people

2. Delaying picking up the phone to ‘sell’ my services

3. Trying to do too many things

And then I looked at the same glass, half full:

1. Helping people see things from other people’s perspectives

2. Making people, including myself, laugh

3. Always moving things forward, never standing still

4. Exploring new things and new ways of doing things

 And I wrote (in the third persona and first persona plural of Lexicona so I can pretend it’s not me): 

• Lexicona is brave: we step into spaces where we feel uncomfortable, so we grow

• Lexicona is sparky: we love ideas and experiments

• Lexicona is energising: we drive progress and have fun

• Lexicona is empathetic: we listen, we care, we are driven by helping people.

This is the Lexicona Code. It’s the internal expression of the Lexicona external brand (Connecting for growth), the ingredients that help me (and the future team) show up in front of our clients consistently and distinctively.

And what do you know – they line up.  So, I can be confident that if we operate according to the Lexicona Code, the client will experience the Lexicona brand. 

“What’s more, the Code is aspirational; I know when I am at my best, I am Brave, Sparky, Energising and Empathetic.  But when I’m not, I’m just not. This is the bar I need as I’m starting up and it’s just as vital now as it will be in a year or in five years.”

It’ll be interesting to see how I use it as the business grows to select partners, take on talent and win new clients.

If you want to explore your culture and how it relates to your brand, drop me a line at adam@lexicona.co.uk