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Ive read a lot of books on building a culture at work. A lot of the advice is well intentioned but to me overly complex. A 20-step framework is a lot harder to live by than a simple operating principle. Culture is something people feel and live more than implement. Venture capitalist Ben Horowitz wrote in his book What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture, Its not the values you list on the wall. Its not what you say in company-wide meetings. Its not your marketing campaign. Its not even what you believe. Who you are is what you do. For me, culture is created through actions. Its the choices leaders make every day that shape how people experience their work. Words can motivate, but actions are what transform. I feel strongly that culture lives in daily behavior, in the decisions that happen behind closed doors, and in the examples leaders set. When those actions dont match the message, culture starts to crumble. At its core, culture is the outcome of how people treat one another. You can read an organizations culture in the everyday interactions between team members, customers, partners, and other stakeholders, notes Dan Pontefract, a leadership strategist and award-winning author of six workplace culture books. Good or bad, culture is contagious. When people observe respect and generosity, that behavior spreads. But when they see apathy, ego, or petty power plays rewarded, the culture will inevitably corrode. Wherever you look, culture is an outcome, and it becomes the core of how that organization operates. When Leaders Dont Live Their Values You probably remember when Uber experienced its explosive growth in the early 2010s. CEO Travis Kalanick was known for being bold and disruptive, in more ways than one. The companys innovation at all costs mantra fueled success, but behind the scenes the culture was the opposite. Despite all the values-based talking points emphasizing customer obsession and empowerment, employees defined the culture as toxic, with high levels of burnout, ruthless competition, and ethics issues. People complained about long hours, fear-based leadership, and a lack of trust and accountability. In 2017, former engineer Susan Fowler went public with her experience, describing a workplace filled with harassment, fear, and silence. Ubers culture didnt fail because it lacked values. In fact, it listed many of them on its website that sounded like ones you read about as best practices in Harvard Business Review. Actually, it failed because those values werent real because they werent practiced. What leaders said and did were two totally different things. Eventually Kalanick was fired and the company had to rebuild its culture from scratch. When Leaders Do Live Their Values Microsoft is a different story. When Satya Nadella took over as CEO in 2014, the companys culture was competitive and closed off. It was struggling to innovate and it was losing touch with its people, trying to operate in an industry that required constant change. Nadella knew that the strategy wasnt the big issue, the culture was. Instead of rolling out a new list of corporate values, as CEOs tend to do in grand fashion, he focused on improving behavior. Uncharacteristic for a tech exec, he talked about empathy, curiosity, and growth, and then he modeled them. Nadella openly shared his own learning journey and encouraged people to learn from mistakes. He talked about taking the company from a know it all culture to a learn it all culture. He created space for collaboration and growth instead of competition and fear. The shift is attributed to Microsofts dramatic increase in revenue and success in cloud computing and AI. Employee engagement improved, innovation returned, and Microsoft regained its energy and purpose. The company became known for its empathy-driven leadership and ability to adapt. Nadella didnt just talk about culture, he lived itand people followed. Actions Speak Louder Than Words Culture isnt what you say in meetings; its what people see you do that matters. If I tell people to say no to meetings but I attend every meeting, people will live in fear of my words. If I tell people to challenge the status quo and they see me actively questioning assumptions, theyre much more likely to do it themselves. When your actions reflect your words, trust grows. When they dont, it fades fast. Kevin Bishop, director of talent development at LinkedIn, believes culture is one of the most important things an organization can focus on. Culture isnt static, he says. Its a living, evolving force shaped by our daily choices and actions. If were not intentional, it can drift away from our values and become a liability rather than a strength. Are your actions aligned with your words? Do you practice what you preach when it comes to team culture? Ask yourself these questions: What words would I use to describe my teams culture? How am I demonstrating those words every day? What word would my team use to describe our culture? How am I empowering my team to succeed? How am I removing barriers instead of creating them? If youre brave enough, this is a great exercise to do with your team to shape the culture you want, together. Leading by Example Culture isnt a set of beliefs. Its a set of choices. Every day, your team watches what you do and learns from it. Thats what defines your culture. If your actions reflect your values, people will trust you. If they dont, theyll stop listening. The best leaders understand this simple truth: Culture is not what you say, its what you do.
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E-Commerce
The humble tripod is an unheralded but essential part of any film or photo shoot. It’s the key to making shots level and pans smooth, and as a piece of equipment it’s seemingly about as simple as can be, with three legs and a mount at the top. But as any photographer or filmmaker knows, setting up a tripod properly can involve dozens of moving parts, clamps, pivots, and adjustments. A new tripod system from Italian camera equipment maker Manfrotto turns this setup into a single fluid motion. [Photo: Manfrotto/Layer Design] The Manfrotto Ones unique design allows for all three of its legs to be deployed simultaneously, extending out to the desired length in concert, each locking in place with a single lever. Thanks to a ball-based hub at the top of the tripod, the camera can be leveled in another single motion. And a custom-designed mount makes it possible to swap out cameras within seconds. [Photo: Manfrotto/Layer Design] The idea was to adapt this essential piece of gear to the way content creators are blending their media types. It’s increasingly common for content producersfrom social media amateurs to film and photography prosto quickly move from still cameras to mobile phones, toggle between photo and film, and alternate between horizontal and vertical frames. Designed by the London industrial design studio Layer, the Manfrotto One tripod was reconsidered from every angle to be easier to use and more adaptable to dynamic conditions. “Much of the brief was around quickness,” says industrial designer Benjamin Hubert, founder of Layer. “You’re quickly moving or panning a camera, then you’re able to snap it off and do some handheld shots, and then [you can put the camera] back on and quickly reset the height or the angle of the setup. It’s those transitional elements that allow for speed of use and as frictionless interaction as possible.” Seeing the One as a once-in-a-decade flagship product, Manfrotto has made an eight-figure investment in this new platform. It’s partly an effort to meet changing user needs, but also to stay ahead of the competition. “They’re seeing a lot of people enter the space, a lot of inexpensive products, a lot of commodity, a lot of things out of China and other parts of the world,” Hubert says. “They needed to move the needle and create something that was a big step forward.” [Photo: Manfrotto/Layer Design] Designing a new tripod Despite the seemingly simple makeup of a tripod, it’s a highly complex piece of equipment, and redesigning it to function quickly was far from straightforward. Manfrotto reached out about two years ago to Layer, known for its conceptual and product work ranging from airplane seats to wheelchairs to cryptocurrency wallets to dog toys. Hubert and his team broke the tripod down to what ended up being hundreds of individual components and reconsidered what made them work smoothly. “All the adjustment levers, all the attachment points, all the joints, everything is there because it has to be there from a functional point of view,” Hubert says. “Managing all of that noise and that amount of elements became one of the biggest challenges.” [Photo: Manfrotto/Layer Design] After churning through hundreds of prototyped components and narrowing them down to a series of viable options, Layer presented its designs as a kit of parts, with interchangeable elements and a shared logic. Combining the best bits, they dialed in on what became the One. Prioritizing how quickly the tripod could unfurl and how easily users could swap cameras on and off, Layer’s design focused on the size and placement of its key levers, making sure they could be manipulated almost effortlessly. The designers rethought th tripod’s conventional telescoping legs and created a system for the legs to extend both up and down from a central shaft, allowing the length to be controlled by a single lever. And rather than hiding parts or masking the functional elements of the tripod, Layer opted to accentuate the most critical moving parts in its overall form factor. “It’s like a skeleton constantly on display,” Hubert says. With the Manfrotto One tripod system’s retail price starting at $499, this may not be the gear for the average TikTok user. But the Ones clever design and adaptable use may even have amateurs looking at their old tripods with an unexpected level of scorn.
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E-Commerce
The record-breaking Falcons Flight roller coaster starts out slow, but don’t be fooled. Seconds into the ride at the new Six Flags Qiddiya City in Saudi Arabia, passengers are jolted into a high-speed journey that ascends mountainsides, passes through dark tunnels, and then does it all over again. The ride reaches a height of nearly 640 feet, lasts for nearly 3.5 minutes, and travels more than 2.6 miles. It’s the largest, longest, and fastest roller coaster in the world, reaching peak speeds of about 155 mph. To make it, a European design and manufacturing company used the most powerful electro-magnetic propulsion system on the market. Though Saudi Arabia just killed plans for the Line, its futuristic 150-mile-long city, it now holds records at its park, including the world’s tallest inversion on a roller coaster and the world’s tallest pendulum ride. [Photo: Six Flags Qiddiya City] Falcons Flight holds the speed, height, and length records for roller coasters, according to Intamin Amusement Rides, the Liechtenstein-based company that designed it. Founded in 1967, the company’s work spans from monorails in Moscow to an observation tower in Argentina, and includes what it claims was the world’s first giant drop ride in 1995. It says its newest roller coaster is part of “a commitment to pushing boundaries.” Intamin’s linear synchronous motors (LSM) drive system gives Falcons Flight an edge in terms of engineering. LSMs use electro-magnetic propulsion to move the ride forward through permanent magnets on the coaster train and electromagnets on the tracks. That’s different from other methods, like an old-school chain lift pulled by a motor, or a hydraulic launch. With LSMs, a moving magnetic field pulls the train forward. LSMs debuted on two Intamin-designed ridesSuperman: Escape From Krypton at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California, and the Tower of Terror II ride at Dreamworld in Australia, both of which opened in 1997. Today, it’s a popular way to build roller coasters because it’s more efficient and cheaper to run. It’s also super fast. Intamin says Falcons Flight was was always intended to break records; the bird-shaped trains were designed to be aerodynamic, with windshields “engineered to pierce through the air,” not to mention save riders’ eyes from all that wind. The Six Flags Qiddiya City opening late last year came after the November closure of Six Flags America just east of Washington, D.C. Six Flags announced later that month that more closures are forthcoming for underperforming parks. The Quiddiya City park is its first outside the United States.
Category:
E-Commerce
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