How to Rebuild Team Culture with Kimia Hamidi | Episode 7

In this Cultivate Your Culture article, Zoran is joined by Kimia Hamidi, the founder of Buyer – Negotiation as a Service for tech-focused companies. Buyer audits a company’s spend and negotiates their contracts without being jerks. Kimia has been involved in a few other companies, a previous exit, and tons learned along the way. He distills practical tools for rebuilding a team, identifying people who fit your culture, and the difference between culture in start-ups and big companies.

This article is the transcript of a podcast done regularly by Zoran Stojković. Listen to Cultivate Your Culture. Please excuse any transcript errors in this article.

Kimia Hamidi: I think the way that I think about leading a team and and shaping the team is you wanna see yourself as an editor. And so, you know, what does an editor-in-chief do? They synthesize information, they redline stuff, they cross stuff out, and they make sure that you’ve, you’ve kind of, you need to include this key point.
And so has the overall mission been, been achieved in this, in this paper?

Zoran Stojković: Hello, I’m your host, Zoran Kovich and welcome to Cultivate Your Culture. This podcast we’ll be discussing how leaders can build connected, high performing teams in business and sport, using actionable tools, evidence-based systems, and simple processes.

Today on the show we have Kim Hamdi. Chea is the founder of Buyer Negotiation as a service for tech focus companies. Buyer audits. A company’s spend and negotiates their contracts without being jerks, and KEA is involved in a few other companies and a previous exit and and tons learned along the way.

Kimia, welcome to the show my friend.

Kimia Hamidi: Thank you so much for having me.

Zoran Stojković: We’ve known each other for a while, like it has been a while. Yeah. We get together often and, and chat and have lunch, coffee, whatever it is. And we’ve talked about some of these things very, you know, very spontaneously.
Now, we’re gonna discuss them in a bit more structured way I guess. On the record.

Kimia Hamidi: I love it.

Zoran Stojković: On the record, why don’t we start off by discussing how, how do you define team culture? Like what, it’s a term that gets thrown around a lot. It can be very airy fairy. How do you define it?

Kimia Hamidi: It does get thrown around a lot and I think, I think nailing it down is, is pretty tough. And I, and I will say my, my answer that I give, Was different three years ago and will likely be different a few years into the future. And so, you know, with that, with that caveat said and then my, my clarifying question is, would you, would you want me to define what I think of team culture as a whole or how I’m building the team culture at Bayer?

Zoran Stojković: No. How do you define team culture as a whole in general? We’ll get into the specifics

Kimia Hamidi: later. Interesting. All right. So I would define team culture broadly as. The shared set of beliefs, rituals, and values that any team grows and believes in. And values, again, kind of reusing that word, but the shared kind of combination of beliefs that a team leads forward and how they actually execute on a mission, values,

Zoran Stojković: beliefs, and rituals that are shared.
Yes. And that how the team. How that affects the team’s approach in getting

Kimia Hamidi: to a shared mission? Yeah, because if you’re on a team, your goal is either to score the most points and win the championship, or, or if you’re on a business team, your mission is to actually execute upon those those specific goals.
And so how you actually achieve those goals while sharing those values, while sharing those rituals, while sharing those beliefs. That is how I define team culture generally.

Zoran Stojković: Interesting. Interesting. And so where, like, where does that definition come from? Is that something you’ve learned through experience?
Is that something you read in a book or is it something you were taught?

Kimia Hamidi:  Taught that’s, it’s, I don’t think I was ever taught this. I think this is probably a book that I’ve a book that I’ve probably picked up somewhere along the way. The whole kind of idea of culture is How do we kind of get somewhere together while making sure that our values are aligned? And so, you know, I’ve, I’ve kind of built a few companies. I’ve, I’ve sold my last one and as, as I build buyer being intentional about the culture is very, very important, even though, you know, we’re a small team, but, but growing fast.
And so, yeah, I, I probably picked it up somewhere. Seems kind of like a, a textbook definition, but that’s kind of how I would define culture. Broadly

Zoran Stojković: interesting. So this, getting together somewhere while staying aligned is pretty important because teams can head to a destination and then fall apart and absolutely conflicts.

It could be riddled with conflicts, toxic star you know, star talent on a team. So that’s definitely, is really important to have that understanding. And to those, again, those rituals, values and beliefs that you mentioned before, definitely help in that. Mm-hmm. Why, why is it important to culture, cultivate a culture in in a business or sports team?

Kimia Hamidi: Oh, man, I, I think culture is, you know, it’s, it’s essentially everything. It’s how your company interacts together. It’s what you guys think, well, you people think are important as you execute. I think without culture, and this is kind of touching back to why it’s important without culture You, it’s not fun in terms of like how you execute, and you also probably don’t have a great result at the end.

A lot of teams that don’t have a great culture, they, they fall apart before they can actually achieve the goal. So I, I would kind of generally speaking describe it as the metaphorical glue that holds a team together that helps. Get that team to that end destination. I, I also play a lot of soccer and I box.

And so there’s one very team focused sport and one very individualistic sport. Even though a team boxing is, is very much supported by kind of your coaching and the, the people that surround you, and in, in both examples, like I’ve seen teams fall apart. Because they don’t have a shared mission and a shared vision and a shared set of values, and, and it can be as simple as, you know, the soccer players bickering on the field at each other because they messed up.

A very good counter example to that is if you have a great culture, everyone encourages each other to make sure that yes, a mistake was made, but you guys are all like you are aligned. Positive reinforcement, you can attack the goal the next time. And, and same with business, right? Like maybe a deal falls through or maybe someone messed up some kind of client communication.

If your values are high integrity, high honesty. Internal competitiveness, which, you know, I’m, I’m giving those illustrations because that’s how I think about the internal culture buyer. You will not make that same mistake again. The company will be, will be able to move faster and execute more effectively.

And so that’s why I truly think culture is important. There’s a lot of kind of woowoo definitions of, well, you know, everyone has to be nice and everyone has to be on the same page. And I, I don’t really believe in that. I think. It’s generally speaking it’s good to have some kind of internal competition and, and disagreement between how things are done because through diff disagreement becomes or kind of better processes are revealed.

And so that’s, that’s a very long answer into why I think culture is incredibly important.

Zoran Stojković: Oh, it’s a great answer. And I love your analogy about the glue, because that’s very vivid. And it’s those, it’s that fabric, it’s that, that mm-hmm. That thing that holds people together. And you know, you, you’re mentioning that it’s it’s essentially the, the interactions that people have with each other.

I mean, but isn’t it different and isn’t, wouldn’t you say culture is very important where there’s money on the line, there’s jobs on the line. Like if somebody’s playing recreational in a recreational sports team versus being in a business where there’s money on the line, if a deal falls through, how does culture differ in those settings?

Kimia Hamidi: I generally don’t make the distinction because, and this comes back to values, and so whether there is $400 million on the line, or whether it’s a recreational soccer team, integrity could be a core value to your culture. Right. And so I’m not gonna rip someone apart on the soccer field just as I’m not gonna rip someone apart in the business world.

There was obviously a time and a place for, for being stern, but. Just because money is involved doesn’t mean your culture should change or degrade. It’s, it’s kind of how I think about my internal beliefs.

Zoran Stojković: Interesting. So you’re saying the integrity is there regardless, doesn’t matter what you’re doing, doesn’t matter what the stakes are.

Kimia Hamidi: Yes. Yeah. I, I, you know, integrity is, is a, is an example. I think cultures will differ across teams cuz individuals are different. Mm-hmm. But I guess I’m going back on my answer a little bit because if the culture is different between teams, it might be, it might be less intense. The kind of the illustration that I’m trying to give is my, how I try and shape the culture around me is, is very much intentional regardless of what team I’m on and regardless of what the stakes are.

Zoran Stojković: Nice, so you, you, you see yourself as a leader. And the teams that you’re on. Very much so. Very much so.

Kimia Hamidi: Yeah. Oh, yes. Oh yes. And

Zoran Stojković: then how can culture be cultivated and who, you know, who has to be in those conversations? What’s the starting place?

Kimia Hamidi: I, I will say this with the answer first of, I’m not 100% sure because I think there are multiple ways to achieve the, the right outcome in terms of cultivating culture.

I think it starts with a It starts with I, and again, this word of culture is especially kind of overused in this context, but I think it starts, starts with a a shared knowledge of transparency. And so do you have, when you are first building the team, because I mean in, in the classic kind of startup scenario is you are one person and your culture is essentially yourself.

And it doesn’t really matter that much. But as soon as you expand to another person your interactions. Are the kind of definition of how the bedrock of the company is being formed. And then when that third person comes on, the team has expanded. Some processes are gonna get thrown into the mix and things are gonna change, but that underlying bedrock of values is super important.

And so building a great culture is, is something very difficult. So I, I think the. Best way to cultivate it is be very intentional about what you’re trying to accomplish from the outset and being very transparent about the values that you wanna see throughout your organization. That’s a weak answer and I don’t love that, but that’s the best answer I can give you because that’s, again, I’m learning about this as well.

Zoran Stojković: Yeah, for sure. And I, I appreciate your, your humbleness and, and saying that there’s, well, first of all, it’s multiple ways to do it and that you’re, you’re not entirely sure, cuz you’re still, you’re still learning when we think about values. Which you brought up a couple of times, like integrity. Mm-hmm. Who actually would get to pick those?

Like if there’s a culture, if there’s a startup that’s going from five to to 20 employees mm-hmm. Who would who would get to pick those values?

Kimia Hamidi: You know, and it, it starts with the leadership team for sure. And so one of the things that, that I am very intentional about, so let me back up a second. When you are creating a team, The way you should think about your role, and this is specifically in relation to a leader.

And this is not my advice, by the way. This is advice that I’ve picked up through business leaders much better than myself. But I, I think the way that I think about leading a team and and shaping the team is you wanna see yourself as an editor. And so, you know, what does an editor-in-chief do? They synthesize information, they redline stuff, they cross stuff out.

And they make sure that you’ve, you’ve kind of, you need to include this key point. And so has the overall mission been, been achieved in this, in this paper? And so it’s very similar to when you’re building a team, your initial hires are incredibly important because if you are being intentional about your values, you have to then say, these values have to be in these initial hires, and then does their input.

Transition over into the next hires and does their kind of, do, their values carry over? And so the best way I can, I can describe where that starts with is, Being a very intentional leader and being a very intentional editor as you grow your team, and if you find the values are slipping, it’s, it’s incredibly important to continue to edit your team and make sure that those people are no longer on your team.

Mm-hmm. And I mean, candidly, this was a mistake I made with my previous company, is there was a misalignment in values and I didn’t act fast enough. And I will tell you, I’ll never make that mistake again.

Zoran Stojković: Right. So you’re saying, first of all, un be the editor of the team, so understand what the values are and, and you said those have to come from the leadership group.

And then the second thing is being careful who you let on the team, especially early on in that process where the team is just starting to grow because that’s gonna multiply across. And you want people that are in alignment with those values and that actually live them. And then, So what I’m reading between the lines is mm-hmm.

One of the best defenses against the toxic culture is who you let in.

Kimia Hamidi: Absolutely. I, I think that’s a very great way of, of simply putting it. The, the, you know, I say it starts with leadership, but people have to internalize these values and you shouldn’t hire someone who. Superficially internalizes these values.

And then, you know, later down the line you realize that, oh wow, they, they don’t align with our, our culture at all. They don’t believe in integrity. They kind of subvert things, and they’re not truly honest about how the, how their progress is is coming about. And so while it starts with leadership like.

These are, these are characteristics that your team should, should value independently, and your job should be, how do I bring these to the surface as I interview people, and how do I make sure that they are not just saying it and they actually believe this as they come on board? So, yes, absolutely. The, you know, edit the team and, and make sure that, you know, it’s it’s as you so simply put, they start with these beliefs in the first place.

Zoran Stojković: Yeah, that’s I, I do think that’s massive. And and then they say If you can’t change the people, change the people.

Kimia Hamidi: I love, I love, I’m stealing that. That’s great. Oh, 100, 100%. I mean, that’s, that’s very in line with being an editor of the team. Yeah. You need to constantly edit to make sure you’re going in the right direction effectively.

Zoran Stojković: And coaching, right. Coaching on teams has become has become really, Has began, some, has become something a lot of companies do. Yes. In that they won’t just fire somebody who doesn’t align with something. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Slightly they’ll, they’ll try to coach ’em through it and Yeah. And help ’em out.
And that’s I think that’s a better way to save, save money in the long run as well, because onboarding and turnover are devastating.

Kimia Hamidi: Devastating losses can be. Oh, for sure, for sure. I, I think the easy way around that is high or slow. Make sure who’s coming on your team in the first place is not someone that you’ll have to let go.

The caveat there is an easy milestone is zero to 1 million and the 1 million to 10 million in terms of revenue. And so who, the people who got you from zero to 1 million are not necessarily the people who will get you from 1 million to 10 million.

Does that mean you should let them go? No, absolutely not.

They should be focused on, you know, creating new products or, or doing other productive things. And so when I say edit the team, I don’t mean well, thanks for your work. Goodbye. It’s like, as long as they internalize those values, I think there’s, there’s kind of a place, and I’m not saying turn over your workforce every, every mile like revenue milestone, but Yes, yes.

Zoran Stojković: But you may have to, is what you’re saying, and the culture is gonna change as the mission of the company changes, as the targets change, as pressure builds up, and there’s gonna be people that maybe even with coaching, can’t handle that.
Kimia Hamidi:  Yeah. AB Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And as

Zoran Stojković: a leader, helping those people move along to better opportunities.

Kimia Hamidi: Totally. No, I, I completely agree. There’s someone who I hold in, in great, in very high esteem is Patty McCormick of Netflix, and her whole thing was how do we make Netflix a great place to be from? And I love that because if you have an awesome company with an awesome culture who solves very hard problems, and then when the time comes that you have to edit your team and there’s no longer a good spot for that person on the team.

You help them find a great transition role where they can go help another company succeed and your company becomes that awesome place to be from. And so like anyone who’s ex Netflix X, Google X, Facebook, like those are all awesome companies to be from. So as a leader, I think it’s, it’s important to be intentional about how to make your company a great place to be from.

And you know, that remains to be seen with buyer, but I would love to achieve that in any capacity.

Zoran Stojković: Yeah. And that’s I guess what that means is having that, having cultivated that culture that’s powerful and that people love to talk about and talk about in, in a high regard and in a leadership group that people felt was transparent, acted with integrity, cared about them.

Mm-hmm. I guess that’s a piece of that, and I love that. Make a, you know, making a company a great company and be

Kimia Hamidi: from the caveat there is, yeah. Oh, sorry. No, I was just gonna say the caveat there is your company has to be well respected. Mm-hmm. Cause if you’re, if you’re Acme and Co Chemical Consulting or, you know, whatever, some, a BBC lawyers and Co you could be the, you could be a great company, but the optics of that are very bad.

And so I think this works well in tech. And so you, you also need to be solving an interesting problem, so, And reinventing the wheel in a sense. Yep. So, agreed. Keep that in mind. Yeah. How, how

Zoran Stojković: have you sh helped shape team cultures? What’s you know, what have you actually done to to, to influence that process?

Kimia Hamidi: It’s tough on a small team to say, these are the specific activities I’ve done. Like, you know, team site paying for lunches. Like, I, I think that stuff is all kind of superficial. I think the. Best thing that I’ve done is be very intentional about who I’ve brought on the team and make sure that their values align with mine.

And so as the team grows, you know, to touch back to that editor example, how do I make sure that we are growing with the right people? In the right role with the right values. And I think that’s probably the best thing I can point to, that I’ve done to help grow the team and just make sure we’re, we’re mission driven and mission aligned.

Zoran Stojković: Right. People, value right role and yeah, exactly. And you, so you’re saying the hiring process is, has been paramount for you shaping

Kimia Hamidi: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I’m a proponent of hiring slow and it just worked out that our latest hire. Came on board very quickly, a, because the pressure was big and B, because she is an absolute rockstar and she’s proving that again.

And so I think we got lucky with her. But I, I will say like, I think hiring slow and making sure that you have the time to actually find the right candidate is incredibly important to making this work. Because if your whole company’s falling apart and you need an actual person to. Fill some kind of requirement and you say, well, you know, they’re good enough and we’ll figure it out later.

That is horrible for cultivating a great culture. And so it’s, it’s super important and it is this balancing act. And so being prepared is probably the key to unlocking this. I mean, Airbnb is notoriously I guess famous or infamous for this depending on you know, who’s telling the story. But they took six months to to hire their first employee and they described it as building a plane as you are falling off the cliff and the floor is approaching very quickly.

And so, Do you have the time and the bandwidth and the internal patience and internal grit to soldier on without saying, well, you know, we’ll hire this person and then we’ll fire them later and, or they might not be the greatest fit, but then they end up staying and then they end up eroding your company’s values, which I think is incredibly dangerous.

Mm-hmm. So these are all lessons that I try and internalize as as we build out our own internal team.

Zoran Stojković: Wow, that’s huge. Took they took six

Kimia Hamidi: months. I, I think so. You’d have to look that up, but I think that’s the Oh yeah. I know, I know. Yeah. It’s wild.

Zoran Stojković: It’s wild. Their story is quite fascinating. It’s incredible. These cultures as they’re being shaped, there’s, there’s, you know, examples of you know, productive or helpful behaviors, and there are toxic ones. Yeah. What do you think is toxic for team culture and, and how have you dealt with those people or behaviors in the past?

Kimia Hamidi: Ooh,  that’s a big question. The former, the former answer is, is relatively straightforward. The behaviors I think are toxic are, are kind of the blame game and trust and lack of integrity within an organization because I think everything starts with if you are all on the same team and on the same side.

It’s not about, she’s not on my team, he’s on my team. It’s about, we’re all on the same team. So if the sales team is not executing on their goals, it’s not a question of like, do a better job. To execute on these. On these targets, it’s what can I do to enable the sales team to execute more effectively on their goals?

Is it better sales material? Is it you know, more bandwidth? Is it more the top of funnel leads? It’s, it’s a question of, of shared objectives versus why are there not more leads? What can like it blaming them in and not executing on something? The, the second part to your question is how have I dealt with that poorly in the beginning of my entrepreneurial career?

I think I was too quick. I was too quick to hire and I looked superficially in terms of who could fill this problem role right now, versus how can I actually build people that want to go far. Cuz it’s the saying that I try and internalize is, you know, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

But if you take a dagger to the back, Along the journey and they steal your lunch. That’s never ideal. No. So I think I think making, being very intentional about the team early on is the best thing you can do to deal with toxic culture and just con, continually being aware of it as you go.

Zoran Stojković: Is there a story that comes to mind with how what?

Kimia Hamidi: Yes, but I will not say you, you won’t say, okay. I can’t, I can’t say, I can’t say for the podcast. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Neat. I mean, I don’t wanna, cuz I don’t wanna step on, I don’t wanna step on any

Zoran Stojković: no, no, no, no, no. It’s completely, completely okay. I, and I think what you’re mentioning around you know, the blame game Yeah, like blaming others trust issues, lack of integrity, that misalignment and lack of synergy within the team and, and not being aligned with the values.

Yeah. Those are, those are massive. And that’s what I keep hearing over and over. Mm-hmm. In my in my interviews on this podcast is you know, trust, trust is massive and transparency, like those are two words that keep coming up over and over and over and over again. And, and transparency really speaks to communication, doesn’t it?

Kimia Hamidi: Absolutely. It speaks to, right? Yeah. Clarity. No, sorry. Go continue. Yeah, absolutely. Interesting because I think this is such an obvious statement. It’s. The statement of, well, you should trust each other. It’s like, obviously, or it’s you should act with integrity. It’s like, of course, I think there’s a very big difference between understanding those and internalizing those.

And I don’t think enough people truly internalize those those kind of values and, and bring those to the core of the team. And I think it’s, it’s often overlooked. And so I’m. I try and, and I’m not, I’m not perfect, obviously, I, I make these mistakes sometimes, but I try and internalize these, these lessons and kind of build the people around me because it’s so easy to let it slip and say, well, they’re so good at this.

Like, they’re the asshole genius, right? They’re the best coder I’ve ever seen, but they’re kind of a douche. And it’s like, well, is is there a, is the boundary of letting this superstar on your team worth it? Sometimes yes, sometimes yes. Oftentimes not necessarily.

Zoran Stojković: Yeah. Star performers on teams can be really really tough to deal with, especially if they’re used to being the best Yeah.

On, the teams that they’ve been on, they know they have the talent and the skillsets to really crush it and that, and they know they’re valuable to the team. Mm-hmm. They know they’re an asset, so. They know that they could probably get away with more things than other people. Totally. Which can be really tricky for, for the leadership group.

And so having double standards is never, never really ideal in my view. And I think that having, that really, it goes, really goes back to values and, and the, the behaviors that we’re talking about. Like, are your behaviors aligned with the values of the company? And we don’t do that here. Here, here’s how we do things here.

Kimia Hamidi: And Netflix, which you mentioned has a culture deck. Great read. Yeah. Post it in the show notes. 

Zoran Stojković: That’s an awesome read. Yeah. You know, like a lot of times what I’ve noticed is we talk about culture and it’s this very fairy intangible thing that people know is important, but then we can’t put a pin on it.

Mm-hmm. So how can leaders measure and assess team culture? Like what are actual tangible ways. To measure it.

Kimia Hamidi: I don’t have a great answer for you. Unfortunately, measuring culture is incredibly hard because the way I I kind of define culture in the beginning is a shared set of rituals and beliefs and values that each member of your team internalize and, and share collectively.

I think there are certain behaviors that you can look out for, but I, I don’t have a great answer for how to measure it because. You know, it’s measuring, it implies that there’s a, there’s an outcome that is achieved. And how do you measure integrity? Well, the, the kind of, the inverse of that is like bad things have happened because people have been have acted with not high integrity.

And that’s something that you wanna avoid completely. And so, Again. Yeah. Again, I wish I had a better answer for you, but I, I don’t, that’s just kind of how I think about it and it’s, it’s, it’s very tough to measure, but I think again, it comes back to bringing on people that you can go far together instead of saying, well, your your honesty was seven outta 10 this month, and therefore that’s not good enough and we’re gonna have to let you go.

I think that’s, you know, that’s a very over illustrated example, but, I don’t really think about measuring culture. I think it’s, it’s kind of something that is always running within the company and it’s something that you have to continually encourage people to to share. So communication is a great example.

Communication and transparency is say you know, with remote work it’s. Even more important to over-communicate in this sense. And so are, are you sharing specific wins with the entire team or are you sharing errors with just the management team? Right. That is something that I would actively encourage my team to share within, within each other, but that it’s, it’s tough to measure and so I think just being a constant champion and promoter of.

These are the values and these are the things that we’re gonna share internally. This is how we’re gonna operate going forward. Make sure that you kind of execute on these things together. Is, is the best way that I would say how we would measure it. But again, measuring isn’t, isn’t kind of effective, but it’s, it’s tough for me to define.

I hope that kind of answers the question.

Zoran Stojković: It does. It does. And I think it gets us to a good point. I mean, what comes up for me is, A part of it is subjective. Mm-hmm. And part of it I think, could be measured objectively. I think a piece of it is, a piece of it would have to be asking each member of the team, what is the per, like what’s the mission of this company?
Mm-hmm. And seeing how, what percentage of a match it is to what the actual written down mission of the company is. Like, what are the values of the company? Oh, I didn’t know we had values.

Kimia Hamidi: Right, right.

Zoran Stojković: Totally. So taking that as a measure, that would be a good indicator. People aren’t clear on what the culture is.

Yes. And therefore, they’re likely not acting in accordance with the, they might be. Mm-hmm. But that clarity is the first place to start, isn’t it? We’re talking about communication earlier, like Absolutely. What do I have to do? What do I not do? Mm-hmm. I think a piece of it is being in an office, being in a seeing those, seeing a meeting like a, like a call online or, or a meeting in person.

Mm-hmm. You can see, you can pick up on a lot of information from people. Yeah. And, you know, do people have a stake in like, what’s in it for them, for working for that company? Mm-hmm. I mean, how is that helping get them towards their, their goals and, and I, I think that’s a piece of the culture. Absolutely.

I think, you know, Vulnerability is, is massive. And I, I’m not sure how to measure that, but I think knowing how to create situations where there’s psychological safety. Mm-hmm. And by psychological safety, I mean, are people open and vulnerable to share and take risks and mess up in front of their peers and, and teammates, I guess?

Yeah. So I think that sense of openness and vulnerability is huge and And so, so that’s, maybe that’s a piece of it, you know, like mm-hmm. You’re on a call and, you know, call’s about the start. You’re waiting for everybody and like five people aren’t talking. That might be an indicator that something Something’s off.

Yes, something’s off. Yeah, absolutely. And, and if the calls buzzing, if people are chatting, Hey, I was, we, you know, that’s, you can tell from some of those things, huh? What do you think? Yeah, no,

Kimia Hamidi: I, I, I like the the value assessment. What do you think our values are versus what our actual values are? Because I think that’s a quantitative way of measuring mm-hmm.

What the actual outcome is. But I think, I think you’re right. There’s also an implicit, an implicit part of it where some of it is, is internalized and, and very difficult to measure. Mm-hmm. The other thing that I think is, is important to note is there is a very real element of slowing down your company.

To make sure that everyone is on the same page with culture, because it’s very easy to bring people on and execute quickly and say, this is what we’re actually moving towards. Let’s get to the result. And there’s a very fine balance between speed of execution and implementing processes. And that’s a constant battle that.

That I face because the last thing I wanna do is slow down my team because, you know, we’re, we’re a small, fast moving company and it, it pays to be nimble. But also are we, are we executing quickly with those shared beliefs? And while the culture stays intact, and it’s easy when you’re a small company, very difficult when you’re a big company.

Zoran Stojković: Oh man, you you keep saying this, it’s a gem. It’s an absolute gem what you’re saying here with not going too fast, but also not going too slow. Mm-hmm. So, I think sometimes leaders try to build this tower before they built the foundation and then the tower just ends up falling over. Yeah, totally.

The foundation really is those, like when you’re in this space, when you’re in this environment, when you’re working for our company, company X mm-hmm. Here’s what you’ve agreed to. And when you don’t agree to this, here’s how somebody’s gonna call you out. As things change, as some of those values become more clarified, different, maybe really waiting for people to, and, and just keeping, reminding people about those, and I think that’s massive.

Kimia Hamidi: Mm-hmm. I think that’s, no, I, I agree. I, I think it’s I think there’s definitely an, and this is something that I, I do with all my own team is anyone who’s going to be working. With that person that we are looking to hire, they always have a say in whether or not they want this person on the team, because I love that.
Love that. A, I think it creates transparency, and B, it’s if I miss something in terms of a value fit or a cultural fit, and they pick it up, it’s a second line of defense. And so they can say, well, like their answer. Around this scenario, it was kind of lacking in integrity. And I think that’s something to note.

And I was like, wow, I totally missed that. I think that’s, that’s so interesting. And so giving people a say is, is a way that we promote transparency internally. Again, it, it gets quite tough if you’re joining a thousand person team mm-hmm. If this works for small companies. But you can silo that out and I think it’s important.

Zoran Stojković: Well, I mean, yeah, if you’re, if you’re using Agile to manage your team, You have these, you know, teams of up to eight people. So if you’re hiring for a position within that team, maybe the other six or seven people, you know, have a say in this. And it’s that’s a really great way to do it. I know the, the Canadian snowbirds, mm-hmm.

Or like the fighting the jet. Yeah. Fighting jet formation. Yeah. That’s how they onboard new members. That’s great. I love that. They’ll, they’ll have somebody come to training camp. Yeah. And everybody gets a say. And if one person doesn’t like that person for whatever reason Yeah. They. Don’t make the team.

Kimia Hamidi: Yeah. That’s it. It’s, and it’s, and it’s tough too because you have to, you have to kind of appeal to everyone, which is, which is difficult, but that’s why it comes back to, there is, there’s an element of danger here where I. If someone existing on the team has a fragile ego and they challenge, and this new person challenges their ego in effective way, they could speak out against it.

Mm-hmm. And so again, this, this circles back to how do you create the initial team so that they welcome a challenge and they welcome difference of thought because that should be incredibly important. So when that new person comes on and, and challenges your beliefs, that might actually be for the better.

And so, What you wanna watch out for is shared values with there’s an actual quote that I, I’m gonna butcher here, but it’s, you know strongly held opinions. It’s strong, strong opinions loosely held, which is if someone comes in with a better way of doing things, that’s great. If they come in with an entirely different set of values, not so great.

Mm-hmm. And so understanding and identifying that is, is very important as you grow. Well,

Zoran Stojković: I think that’s powerful because you’re, that’s ultimately the people that are gonna be working with that person. I guess the egos, egos can get in the way. People of course, already work in the company can potentially feel threatened.
Yep. Right. For, for their position. For, for whatever, like, for whatever reason. And, and so it’s important to keep that in mind as well. Mm-hmm. Kimia, what is cultivating your culture mean to you? What does that phrase mean to you?

Kimia Hamidi: What does cultivating culture mean to me? I think it, if I were to boil it down, I would say cultivating my culture means setting the standard as the company grows.

And so as we, and again, this comes, I, I brought it up a few times, but it comes back to editing the team. And so co like cultivating is another word for making sure everything is aligned and growing properly. And so as I build out the team around me, how do I make sure that. We are continually on the same page.

We are operating efficiently and effectively. We have the same shared set of values and we can execute on our mission because we are here to accomplish something at the end of the day, and that is to grow the business. And so if we’re all here to hang out, that’s more of a club. We’re not in a club, and so that’s how I would, I would define cultivating your culture as is.

Setting the pace, setting the tone, setting the values, and making sure that everyone is on the same page.

Zoran Stojković: Oh, I love that. Setting the standards, setting the pace, making sure everybody’s on the same page and aligned and. Man, that you mm-hmm. There’s a lot of gems in that, in what you just said in the last Yeah.

You gimme, you gimme credit, but I appreciate that. No, no, it’s really good. Definitely. Really, really good. I appreciate that. I mean, when I think  of online companies versus in-person companies.

Kimia Hamidi: Mm-hmm. Culture. Culture. Well, everycompany is kind of online right now.

Zoran Stojković: Well, yeah.

Right now, but yeah. A lot of companies are on online culture cultivation is a little bit different. Like where, where do you think that differs for in-person versus

Kimia Hamidi: online companies or teams? That’s a good question. I think online teams have an extra element of force that they have to apply to the culture and little things like a great example of this is I was kind of heads down working.

Incredibly busy. And ju my product and data manager said, Hey, it’s it’s one of our, our employees’ birthdays. Can I expense cookies to be delivered to her place? Just as a, as a kind of, you know, welcome to the team. We’re excited to have you. Like, you’ve been great so far and I love that. And like, it’s, it’s little stuff like that where you would, you know, you would bring someone coffee in the morning.

You can’t do that any longer, but the, the kind of the internet world is. Is less challenging than you think, but it does require an extra bit of force. And so how do you go outta your way to have morning and evening sinks? Or if that’s too much, how do you actually make sure you’re all on the same page and just connecting?
Because I think that often gets overlooked in in person. You know, you see your office mates and you’re there and you know you can kind of have a good time and you can chat. But there is a level of dissociation with an internet business where it’s very easy to wake up, execute on your tasks, and then sign off.

And I think it can be dangerous if you are not intentional about making sure people are valued, making sure that they’re a part of your team. And I, as a total aside in a, in a business context, I think there’s gonna be very big businesses built around making sure your internet company culture is aligned.

And here are all the different things that you can do to include people. And so again, a very, a very long-winded way of saying it’s difficult online, so be more attentive about it. And that’s,

Zoran Stojković: The, the, the, the sinks that you’re talking about, you mean? Do you mean like campfire conversations?

Like were you just chat, chatting about whatever, or do you mean like actual check-ins to talk about the tasks of the day?

Kimia Hamidi:  I do a combination of both. And I, I, there’s no, I don’t think there’s one right answer, but typically what we’ll do is we’ll start off with a morning sync where it’s the it’s kind of each core team.

And so, you know, start off with casual conversation. How was the weekend? How was your night like, what did you get up to? And I, and I think it’s important to have an element of that in every meeting. And I actually think there was a paper written that might not have been a paper, but it might have been kind of an informal study that.

Teams that have five to 10 minutes of just chat before the meeting actually begins they accomplish way more and they’re much more transparent. I’ll try and dig up that, that paper for the show notes for you and for the listeners, but I always try and foster that, that kind of openness and casualness.

Before we dive into the tasks. So we’ll start with that and then we’ll dive into kind of the run through of the day. And then at the end of the day, depending on how busy the day is or depending on how the day is unfolding, we’ll have an end of day sync. And again, how was your day? What happened, any challenges, anything that any anyone else can help with.

And then we do kind of a final wrap up. Not always necessary, but I, I think it’s important, especially, you know, internet companies, we try and always do video. Because there is, you know, you lose the face-to-face ness online. Mm-hmm. And so I, I think it’s extra important. 

Zoran Stojković: That’s massive. I’ve definitely heard about that.
I’ve heard about that paper. So if you could send that along, that would be really awesome. And I’ll, I’ll put in the show notes that, that makes sense because what one of the, one of the frameworks on team culture. It says that we have task cohesion and social cohesion and sa task cohesion is how aligned are you on the task?

Do you understand what your role is? What’s your responsibility? Do you see your impact on it? And then social cohesion is is this other part that you’re talking about, the five to 10 minute chats before the actual meeting starts. So it is, and that is really important as well, in enhancing team performance.

No, I, I completely agree. It makes sense. You you bond. Before you go into battle and then you battle well together,

Kimia Hamidi: like that’s, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Zoran Stojković: Is is there a book or, or a resource that has shaped your understanding of culture that you’d suggest? Mia?

Kimia Hamidi: You know, prior to this podcast, I was brushing up on, on what I, what I thought I would bring in terms of resources or books.

There’s a great paper, it’s more of an essay actually by Steve Newcomb. It’s called hire, like if you Google AngelList radio hiring and hiring and management. He was the person who built it was, he built a company called Powerset that was bought by Microsoft and turned into Bing. And while Bing is, you know, a shadow of what Google is, a lot of people use it and he has some very interesting thoughts.

Oh, the paper is called Cult Creation, by the way. That is a very, very interesting, interesting paper. You know, I say paper loosely, it’s, it’s more of like a long essay. The other thing that I think is interesting is there’s this company called Snowflake and their c e o released this great blog post that I love.

It’s very intense and it’s not for everyone, but. The core takeaway of that blog post is basically, if you imagine like water rushing across and you push it through a very tight hole, it becomes very pressurized. So if you reduce the aperture of a, of a kind of of a lens or of a kind of a surface area, everything speeds up.

And his whole thing was how do you reduce the slack in an organization to speed everything up? While making sure that everyone is aligned. The other one I really like is the, we referenced this earlier, but the Netflix culture deck, the making sure Netflix is a great place to be from. And I think is it, is it Patty McCord or Patty McCormick?

I think it’s Patty McCord. I think I said Petty McCormick before, but she’s awesome. She has a really, really great and interesting take on culture and I think she, she must have written a book by now, but I listened to a podcast on that. So it’s little bits of these information that I’ve, I’ve used to assemble my own view of culture and like I said, Three years ago, my answer would be very different.

In another three years it will probably be different again. So we’ll have to chat then. But I think those are interesting resources. Great.

Zoran Stojković: Thank you for sharing those. You know, what’s one practical tool leaders can use tomorrow to cultivate the culture of their team? 

Kimia Hamidi: I have a bit of a different answer I think.

The tool is Zoom and notes, and you should schedule an interview with as many people on your direct reports as possible or on your team and have a ch have a chat with them about the shared values of your team. Record that, put that into a shared deck and review it with everyone. That is probably the most practical thing you can do.

Zoran Stojković: Wow. That is, that is very practical. Zoom, record some notes. Ask people what, like, what do you think? What’s this team about? What makes us special and excellent? What’s our, what are our values? What’s our mission, vision? And then put that and then summarize that. That would definitely help you cultivate your culture.

Kimia Hamidi:  Yes. Yeah, it, it just helps people get aligned. I think if you have a view of how things are going, there is very likely alternative answers. What you think and what other people think are often not on the same page, especially in an internet business. And so making sure that you are on the same page, taking out a day, you might fall behind on your tasks, but if your team is aligned, you’ll go much farther together.

Zoran Stojković: It’s worth it. And then sharing that with them. Exactly. Yeah. Neat. So maybe the last thing here is tell me about buyer. Tell me what you’re up to and and where people can find you.

Kimia Hamidi:  Sure, yeah, absolutely. So Buyer is negotiation as a service for tech focused companies. And what we do is we are essentially an on-demand procurement team for businesses.

We come in, we audit, Every vendor spend line item that a company is, is paying for and make sure that they aren’t wasting money. We have all these benchmarks on what companies should be paying and what they are potentially paying. And so, you know, a great example is how do we come in? You’re paying for 300 tools to run your business.

When you initially bought those tools, how do you know that Salesforce, Tableau, NetSuite, these enterprise tools that probably cost tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars? How do you know that you’re getting the best price? So we come in, we renegotiate those contracts to make sure that a company is saving money across the board and buying and spending responsibly.

The website is buyer.co  You can find me on Twitter at hk. Or shoot me an email at, keep me@buyer.co. 

Zoran Stojković: Amazing, my friend. It was great talking to you. Let’s yeah, a pleasure. I could, I could talk to you for hours and it’s always a dynamic high energy conversation and so thanks for taking the time to, to talk to us today.

Kimia Hamidi: Yeah. Thanks for having me. It’s been a lot. It’s been a lot of fun.

Zoran Stojković: Hey, thanks for tuning in to Cultivate Your Culture Rate and Reviewer podcast on iTunes. Any websites and resources mentioned in the podcast as well as the guest information can be found on the show notes at www.kiso.ca/podcast.