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We all agree culture is important. We all agree that ‘good culture’ should lead to better results. And yet, many struggle to actually describe what their culture is. That means they also find it hard to actually assess culture fit (or add) when hiring.

That is exactly why our focus at Open Org is about helping people & leadership teams to design & manage culture in a much more transparent, tangible way. ⚙️

The below 1-pager summarises our core philosophy & approach to culture assessment, and includes a template culture interview rubric too!

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Is it Culture Fit? or Culture Add? 🤷‍♀️

How long have you got?! 🤣

This is such a long-running debate and conversation in the culture space, with some great arguments and views on both sides, including this article by TestGorilla:

https://www.testgorilla.com/blog/culture-add-vs-culture-fit/

🧠 Our View?

For us, the reason this has even become a debate in itself it because the concept of ‘culture fit’ interviews started to become all about hiring folks based on likability and commonality of hobbies & interests. The culture fit became this thing that was effectively positioned as an informal ‘chat’ and gut check exercise for both sides to round off the interview process.

It served no purpose, lengthened the process, and impacted bias, diversity, and culture… in a bad way.

🚨 ”’Culture Add’ has entered the game 🎮”

The intention behind ‘culture add’ is incredibly positive. But, if you’re not careful it can be equally damaging in our opinion. What we tend to see playing out is companies unintentionally using the ‘culture add’ approach as a way of trying to improve DEI. That shouldn’t be the purpose either.

DEI plays a big part in culture. But also DEI ≠Culture.

You run the risk of hiring a team that’s incredibly diverse in many ways (🙌) but without assessing whether those individuals will actually thrive with your ways of work (a.k.a. your culture)

Bottom line: You want to add diversity & diversity of thought to your team, of course. But if you start trying to bring folks who in don’t align or ‘fit’ to your core ways of work, you’ll suffer. A real example of this:

If the way your organisation does its best work is primarily async and you hire someone who really likes face to face zoom calls for all interactions….is that a good hire? No.

You need to do both. So regardless of whatever side of the fence you sit on, you need to think about:

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Culture Interview Rubric [example template from previous tech startup John worked at]

*Thought we’d share this as an example of how behaviour and culture assessment is crowd-sourced amongst the hiring team during a paid work trial aka ‘mutual assessment’.

This same kind of approach also works with a more traditional interview process, so we thought you might find the below a useful reference point.*

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This document outlines our process for determining culture strengthening for someone doing a mutual assessment (final stage of hiring process). This rubric is based on and is meant to be used after a candidate completes their mutual assessment, before an offer is made.

Why we’re doing this: Our culture is our other product

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Hires are “Hell Yeahs” and 11/10 on “culture strengthening”. No exceptions. Our team culture is tangible: It’s how we get shit done. We think about it just like a product.

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Values Scorecard

Culture Rubric for New Hires

| Value | Score: 0 Too little ownership Quiet / Non-expressive | Score: 1 Balanced Ownership Expresses appropriately | Score: 0 Too much ownership Loud / Too expressive | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Be direct and thoughtful

We value honest feedback, direct opinions, and speaking up. We think that conversation is most effective when it is woven with kind intention. | Avoids confrontation

We don’t: • Sit on problems or let things fester. • Avoid difficult conversations.

Behavior in MA: •Not participating in team conversations and jams | We do: • Say whether we like or don’t like something and we always explain why. • Challenge and improve on each other's ideas. • Actively seek and encourage the counter argument

Behavior in MA: • Taking feedback with grace and implementing it

• Actively participating in team meetings and jams | Aggravates unnecessary confrontation

Behavior in MA: • Fighting or arguing when given feedback •Undermines or doesn’t trust teammates’ ability to execute | | Execute quickly with energy and grit

We have a strong bias towards execution and value speed, grit and positivity. | Ships too quickly without thought We don’t: • Give up easily. Behavior in MA: • Misses deadlines • Not moving the needle on assigned tasks in the first few days • Not investing time into the MA • Getting frustrated or shutting down when presented with something new •Produces too quickly, without intention for long term | We do: • Always try and find a way to win. • Try and give energy instead of take it. • Approach things with optimism.

Behavior in MA: • Executing on assigned tasks early in MA and doing them right the first time • Showing up at meetings, jams, and investing time into tasks • Approaching new domains with an open mind | Gets stuck and doesn’t execute quickly

We don’t: • Over-analyze at the expense of just starting and learning. | | Personal growth is professional growth

We believe it's critical to have a growth mindset and bring our authentic selves to work every day. | We don’t: • Shy away from giving each other feedback • Just do 'our job'. Instead we try and help the whole team and seek to go outside our comfort zones

Behavior in MA: • Rejects or doesn’t respond to feedback

•Isn’t willing to open up about who they are, what they love, etc.

•Doesn’t exhibit self awareness about capabilities or values | We do: • Go out of our way to help each other find blind spots and personal development opportunities • Over communicate with each other • Celebrate each other’s wins

Behavior in MA: •Actively seeks feedback • Provides product feedback kindly •Personally problem solves before seeking other’s advice • Shares what makes them them - loves, motivations, etc. • Knows what they stand for and where their skills are and where they need to improve | Behavior in MA: • Can’t communicate reality or distorts things • Inability to be open to another perspective •Make our problems other people’s problems •Doesn’t attempt to problem solve before asking a question |

| Jam often, learn fast We regularly crowd-source challenges to the whole team, regardless of the challenge’s functional origin.

We value bringing everyone’s creativity to bear and enjoy running towards hard problems together. | We don’t: • Disappear into siloes • Stay stuck in a rut

Behavior in MA: •Going down rabbit holes on tasks, not getting it over the line quickly • Doesn’t try to jump in on collaborative discussions to ask questions, add POV, etc. | We do: • look to collaborate and share problems early and often •Unleash our creativity together as a whole team

Behavior in MA: •Asks clarifying questions and gets moving • Acts like a member of the team in group discussions.

Doesn’t wait to be told to jump in. | Behavior in MA: • Talking just to talk - contributing points that aren’t valuable •Creates distraction or blocker to a decision, derails conversation in a non productive way | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Role Competency

We execute in our domains with excellence. We are masters in our craft and deliver our best every time. | Behavior in MA: •

Outsource without first understanding it. • Requires many “revs” of QA from team, copy editing, etc. before work is polished and done •Displays skill overlap or unnecessary skills for business stage | Behavior in MA: • Completes tasks before or by deadline provided • Can collaborate with relevant team members in a way that existing team members are excited about • Adds new value to our existing skill set • Shows excellence in their craft. They are undeniably the right person to do these tasks. | Behavior in MA:

• Shipping something that isn’t thoughtfully done / maintainable |

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If you do not have a specific example for why you’re providing a score for a given value, you should not score that category. Bad signal is worse than no signal.

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