Espresso: how to build culture - Ed Perry, COOK

0:01Morning, morning, or welcome. Yes, I have grown a tash, I have got a nose ring and I am covered in tattoos. I am your barista for the day. Welcome to Espresso short, snappy Espresso short podcast episodes. I've literally downloaded all the wisdom from all the founders and all the brands like Gude, Tills, Coconut Collaborative, Candy Kittens, Little Moons, Planet Organic and I've distilled it into this micro, short, snappy wisdom to give you a mahoosive edge on the day to kickstart your day so look, without further ado, let's get cracking and enjoy this espresso shot the culture's really interesting, it's kind of a bit like almost like decorating a Christmas tree in that I think on LinkedIn, on social media, people are mistaking the decorations, i.e.

0:47the razzle-dazzle, the things that make it sparkle, i.e. the decorations. So I don't know whether it's beers on a Friday or working from home a few days a week. These are like the decorations you put on top of the tree, but the real culture is built through years of nurturing and really going deep into the grounds. I think that's where culture comes from. And I think where we're potentially going wrong is we're focusing on the decorations and not the actual tree. and I think if we'd focused what's the point having delicious decorations if there's no bloody trees hang on right I'd love to know how and there's amazing perks amazing decorations at cook how did you build that die-hard culture like how did you nurture that so the first thing to say is I have been uh very fortunate to work alongside my sister Rosie who's run the business alongside me for the last 10 years and I think she is probably um in fact I'm pretty certain she is the best um CEO of culture in the country in terms of how you do it she's obsessed by it and has always been obsessed by it um so it's not it's categorically not something I would have been able to do by myself she is she is she is a culture genius um and so she has she's been the architect of it and i suppose i'd say a couple of things one is that culture is own you can only build it in an intentional way you have it's like anything else you have to plan it you have to you have to figure it out and i couldn't agree with you more the bells and whistles if people think they can hang bells and whistles or throw bells and whistles at the problem to create culture they're totally kidding themselves that's bullshit the thing that underpins everything in a culture is the values of an organization.

2:36And values are things that most companies now make visible. And you can take values as seriously or as unseriously as you like. A lot of the time, it feels like a lot of the time in companies, values come out for two days. You know, people go away for two days and they sit around and they get pissed and they come up with, and have a lovely time, come up with the values, come back and then it gets sort of put in the drawer and it's how do you you've got to figure out how do you make your values live and breathe in the business and both Rosie and I see our primary roles as CEO as being the guardians and promoters of the values within our company so the values are everything in Cook and you only know values work in a business if people refer to them in sort of everyday conversations within the business.

3:32If people are not doing that, then your values aren't alive and well. And if your values aren't alive and well, then you have no foundations on which to build culture. It's values, values are the most important thing. Quick one guys, Espresso's got a brand new sponsor, Unleashed. Unleashed is inventory management software that talks directly to your finance and econ software. We use Unleashed daily at Ireland's. I bloody love it. We've got our admin time in half, saving approximately 30k a year why use it save money save headaches save stress get granular clarity on your margins know where your stock is don't miss availability look your favorite brands literally use unleashed as their backbone candy kittens tiny rebel trip always religiously look there's a link in the show notes please feel free to book a call with josh and his wonderful sales team at unleashed they're amazing even nothing comes of it and even better news you'll get your first month free if you reference Hungary thank you the other thing that helps build culture is so there's values there's try and measure it so the best company survey has been really good for us because whilst no survey is ever perfect we think that remains the best way of measuring culture every year we do it every year we learn things that aren't quite right in the business that we didn't know about.

4:54People can run companies and kid themselves about their culture. They can think, because everyone's nice to the boss, they can think everything's okay, but actually beneath the surface is all sorts of resentment or pissed off about specific things, whatever it might be. So it really, really helps to actually measure it and actually take a survey each year and actually see where you are and get an objective empirical look at it because culture can be measured. Whilst imperfect, it can be measured.

5:27So, yeah, so those are big things. Try and measure it. Values, for us anyway, have been hugely important. And also just a real belief that we have in the business. At the end of the day, we're making frozen food, right? And the only thing, there is no obvious barrier to entry doing what we're doing. there's nothing technical we're still making small batch quantities and stuff the only reason we've been able to grow and thrive is because of the people that work in the business um it really is it's people really care about what they're doing whether it's working in the shops or working in the kitchens working in the office people really care about the business and it's just knowing that if that culture goes wrong the business will soon go wrong thank you so so much for listening it honestly means the world to me i hope you enjoyed your morning coffee and go and have an amazing day let's be having ya if you want the fun episode it will be in the show notes a link will be in the show notes the full episode thank you so much please leave friends as well it means the world to me