We hear a lot these days about the importance of having great organizational culture. “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” is the infamous Peter Drucker refrain. But what exactly do we mean by “great company culture,” let alone company culture that changes the world and enables people to leave their dent on the universe?

by Tim Cynova, Chief Operating Officer at Fractured Atlas I used to work with someone who would always ask “Which would you rather” questions. Which would you rather: Wear a bathing suit in Antarctica, or a snow suit in the desert? Which would you rather as a musician: Be a one-hit wonder with a song that defines summer for a generation, or a member of a band with modest success for 10 years?

Communicating over space and time [Editor's Note 3/17/10: While the information below is still useful — particularly how channels are used — we also published this related and updated piece.] “Communication is key” is one of those business-isms, like “Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” that seem to appear in most of the articles I read about organizational culture. It’s not misplaced. Open, honest, and respectful communication is a key ingredient in high performing teams and organizations.

by Tim Cynova, Chief Operating Officer at Fractured Atlas Over the years at Fractured Atlas, we’ve invested a great deal of time, effort, and research into improving and honing our hiring process. In this episode of How We Work — created primarily for those staff members involved in our hiring process — we delve into the history, our philosophy, and the stages of the interview process.

The quality of our team, our organization’s very ability to deliver on its mission and remain agile and relevant, relies on the skills our staff bring to the office and use every day. In this episode of How We Work:TV, we explore ways to develop our most valuable of organizational assets, our people. We’ll cover eight strategies — all that don’t cost a dime! They include: (1) Career Conversations (2) Musical Chairs (3) Bring in Outsiders (4) Never Eat Lunch Alone (5) Co-Learning (6) SMART Task Forces (7) Job Crafting (8) Objectives & Key Results (OKRs) Want more ideas, tips, and assistance? Check out my previous posts about creating innovative workplaces and investing in our people, the job crafting workbook available from the University of Michigan, the Inspiring and Motivating Teams course by National Arts Strategies, or try Radical Focus to learn more about OKRs.

Throughout our lives, we’re constantly fighting the Battle of The Urgent versus The Important. If left unchecked, the urgent will fill our days, seducing us with its sweet, false sense of accomplishment and distracting us from the *important* work that changes the world.

Individually never as successful as the sum of their parts I have number of friends who are teachers, and I’ve noticed a theme over the years. Each spring, school principals start sketching out their faculty line up for the following year. They look at who’s leaving and what positions they’ll need to fill. They look at test scores and evaluations to see how they can curate the best teams. And here’s where it gets interesting.

How We Work:TV Remember that time you tried to teach yourself how to use a green screen, and well, one thing lead to another and you launched a web series instead? No? Uh, maybe I’m doing it wrong. I’ve published a number of pieces about how to create innovative workplaces — with a sense of shared purpose — where people can do their best work and thrive. The aim in doing this is to share our philosophy and experience at Fractured Atlas in hopes that it might be helpful to other organizations tackling similar challenges.

Searching for purpose in our work and life Me and my mom Today would have been my mom’s 68th birthday. Instead, my family lost her four years ago to brain cancer. Near the end of her life, my parents were preparing to retire and downsize to a smaller home. As an apartment dweller ever since I graduated from college nearly 20 years ago, I had more than a handful of boxes containing my belongings still stashed in their basement all these years later. I began that rite of passage where one needs to reduce their entire pre-adult existence into a small box that will fit in the back of a small closet inside of a small New York City apartment.

Here’s the good news. Your company has core behavioral values! Here’s the bad news. They might not be ones you want, ones you’re particular proud of, or ones you would print on a t-shirt even to wear on laundry day. Every organization — and every individual, for that matter — has core behavioral values. Values that define and drive the way we act, inform our work and decision-making, and signal to the world in a calling card of sorts, this is what’s important to us.