From Startup to Toxic? How Company Culture Can Go Wrong

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Hey folks, we're going to the experience dev subreddit and this one's about uh company culture that's shifted over time. Uh so the scenario is describing what was a startup uh grew into they're saying like a you know mediumsiz business. I don't know I don't don't know how big that is in terms of people. I'm guessing it's uh on the order of hundreds of people. Uh not, you know, thousands or tens of thousands or something like that. Uh not uh I'm assuming not sub 100. Man, this garbage truck not in a good spot. Let's go. There's like a a hill. I have to pass this garbage truck on a small hill. So yeah, in this person's case, they're describing uh the culture of this company that shifted. And I'm assuming things were um pretty good before, and I don't know exactly the sort of the rate at which which it shifted, but I'm assuming this wasn't uh immediate.

Uh they were and they give some context that seems like there's a lot of blaming across different parts of the organization, right? So you have like uh sales people blaming marketing people blaming engineering blaming sales like everyone's just kind of uh pointing fingers. You have uh obviously from this developer perspective this this focus around like how much pressure they're getting where you know the timelines are constantly shrinking the expectations of delivering more in a shorter period of time constantly going up um uh you layer on this uh I'm sure this thing that many people have been feeling over the last little while you know everything's got to be AI if you're not using AI to optimize every part of your existence then like uh there's pressure for that. So basically feels bad man and uh AI on top of it and you know this isn't a sort of an uncommon thing to hear unfortunately uh especially like this layering of the AI on top of things.

You have companies feeling like this crazy pressure and then where do they have to put that pressure for for them to be successful with AI? Well, obviously onto the engineers like engineers go figure out how we become effective with AI. So, um I think this person was kind of saying like what do I what do I do? What do people do in situations like this where, you know, seems like the the culture of the company is just kind of like falling apart. Um, and it's feeling toxic, right? I think toxic is a really good word uh that describes a lot of what they were explaining in their post. So, I have some thoughts on this, I guess. Um obviously well maybe it's not obvious but I think from my my lived experience uh I can talk a little bit about change in uh some company culture that I observed or um got to learn about sort of secondhand as well.

So, uh I have relevant experience uh in this case, but uh what's interesting with stuff like this is like my career's only been so long. So, I'm fortunate that I haven't had this kind of thing on repeat. So, I have like limited experiences to draw upon. So, I just want to have that disclaimer, but I think also relevant ones. So, um one of the details they gave in their post was about um their leadership at their company and they were saying basically everyone in a leadership position so director and up uh is essentially you know relatively new to the company like they've only been there like the the longest basically like a year and a half so like 18 months and I thought to me this was very telling um because this is where at least at least it um overlaps with some of my lived experiences.

And so when we think about culture at companies, uh culture is like you'll have when people talk about like how do we change company culture? How do we influence it? Like what what is the company culture? Uh I've said this in many videos uh and I have a you know firm stance on this like culture is not something that you dictate. You don't get to write down on a piece of paper our culture is X and then it becomes X. Uh culture is like is the observed uh like reality of of like what you're of what the culture is like. You don't get to dictate it, you get to observe it. uh if that makes sense. So it's not it's not something that you get to to say it is X. You have to observe it. But that does mean that there is influence. There are things that influence company culture.

And so uh all of the the different angles and aspects to a company's culture that you can influence exist, but it is observed. So what does that mean? Well, it means that when you have people in leadership positions, um they will have, you know, uh some of the most influence on what a company's culture is, which is tricky because if they're really good leaders, that means that can be really helpful for a company's culture. And if they're uh if they're not they're not really good leaders then uh then that can erode, right? So the crappy in my opinion the crappier thing is like it doesn't even mean like an okay leader means at least the company culture is okay. Like sometimes even just okay leaders can mean like crappy company culture. Like you need strong leaders in positions like that to drive a positive culture. Uh otherwise I feel like it can fall apart pretty quick.

Um because even just being you know a mediocre leader if you're not aligning uh you know large parts of the organization that you're responsible for even that lack of alignment can mean crappy culture just kind of shows up. And like just in that simple example, if there's lack of alignment purely because someone isn't actively encouraging or structuring things in a way that drive alignment, then you can immediately or I shouldn't say immediately, sorry, that uh that that can specifically lead to exactly what this person's talking about where you just have different parts of the organization that are blaming. Immediate was the wrong word. I just meant like directly I guess directly is the right word, not immediate. So, by the way, someone someone mentioned this on the one of the videos, but when it's raining and my wipers are going, sometimes there's a couple wiper poles that apparently sound like really loud farts.

So, if you catch the fart sounds, I promise it's my wipers. I don't uh I don't film these and just like let out big rippers in the car. Um, I realize that you're not in here with me, but um it would be kind of uh absurd if I was just like farting really loud in my car, but uh it would also be hilarious. So, it is it is the wipers, I promise. Okay. So, I I guess what I'm getting at is like I I largely think that one of the the big issues with this person's uh situation is that they have not just new leadership at their company, but probably also crappy leaders at their company. And the mix of the two things is like uh you know some of the worst combination. And so when we talk about just like having new leaders, it's not that having a new leader is like a bad thing.

Um, but I feel like I think what's maybe more relatable is people who've had new managers come into teams. Have you ever had a manager come into a team and they're obviously new to the team and what they start doing is changing things right away? I think that you can get a lot of this with uh with you know new leaders at director and up positions. You know I my belief is that I've been brought into this this team or this organization to uh you know because of my past experience and my past experience looked like X. So we're going to start doing X and that's how it is right. You want to talk about you want to talk about a a shitty shift in culture. that's uh one of the the fastest ways to to get there. Um so I I can imagine that you have I don't know this for sure, but in this person's case, I suspect there's a lot of that going on.

You have new leadership in across the entire company, right? What are what are the odds that all these people are coming in and not trying to drive change? hearing from other parts of the company that everyone's blaming other people. Like the whole thing is just kind of on fire. Um I'm really sorry my wipers are not going to be okay. Uh it's absolutely raining enough where they should not be dragging, but I guess we're going to deal with that. Um I think in situations like this like if it is true what I'm saying for this person's scenario where it's this combination of like probably not stellar leaders plus they're all new um largely driving that if I'm right about that uh at least from my experience when you have shitty leaders that are brought in if it's addressed early, it's salvageable. I guess I should say like things are always salvageable.

It's just the amount of effort and energy that goes into it that uh that goes up uh the longer it goes on. So if it's caught early and addressed early, I think that it's salvageable. Um, so for example, if you had say of a small company and things are going really well culture-wise, um, and I guess I should say probably we can assume if things are good culture-wise and like the the company's at least, you know, uh, cash flow positive and like things are good and trying to grow. Um, if you were to bring in a new leader and because we're talking about software engineers, let's say we bring in a director of software engineering, a VP of software engineering, whatever it is, could be you're at a small company, there was no CTO and they bring in a CTO, whatever it happens to be, some leadership position.

If that person comes in and uh if they start immediately trying to change things for something that's already working, to me this is a a bit of a red flag. Um yes, obviously it's fair to say that maybe this person was brought in to help the company scale and scaling and growing is going to mean change like absolutely. But uh if someone comes in and they start like forcing change, I think that's where you're going to have some issues. Uh at least in the short term, so maybe those are the right things to do in terms of scale and growth and and whatever the other goals are. Maybe those are the right thing to do. But when you come in with uh you know without having the experience of being at the company and demand change and force change I think that's where you're going to get uh some some pretty big culture hit.

Now that doesn't mean that you come in and you can't change anything or you're unable to influence change. Uh but I think it's a lot more of the latter which is like you need to come in observe what's going on and then uh you know bring people along with you for the change not to to force them into it. This is like I have this belief about engineering managers. I would say the same thing about directors and and above right. Um if you come in and you start demanding change or forcing change I think you are going to be met with a impact on the culture and not a positive way. So if this person is doing that right so maybe that's not the worst thing. Maybe it's a bit of a culture hit. People deal with it. But hey it was the right it's the right thing to do and after a little bit of turbulence things are okay.

Um, if you have this kind of thing happening and say the leader is just not a great leader, I think that this is a salvageable thing, but like I said, uh, it's it's got to be addressed, right? It's got to be escalated. It's got to be there's got to be like evidence of it. Um, because someone I've talked about this in other videos, too, right? someone coming in at this position. Uh let's assume someone, you know, vetted them. Uh and we want to be able to trust and believe that. But they might have been misled, right? Just like it any any role you can hire for. People might kind of sell themselves one way and the reality is uh very different. So I think that it can be caught early. Uh I think that it's challenging but uh it's doable.

I think where I think things really fall apart is uh when this sort of uh spreads and so it's tricky because as a company's growing obviously like at different stages you're going to need to hire in more people like at a director VP level. It's a sort of a more natural growth thing that happens. But when you're growing really fast and you have lots of roles like this coming in, what ends up happening is like I said earlier, right, that these types of roles are very influential for for culture. They don't dictate the culture, but they have a lot of influence on it. And uh that's tricky because I I don't think any person and maybe I can't say this but I don't believe that any person wants to have a shitty work culture. I think people would strive to say that they want to they want everyone to be able to have good work life balance, but they do want to make sure that like, you know, the company's uh productive, right?

It's a business. But I I think that people if they could dictate a work culture, they would probably want something positive for everyone. Uh but you know, what what they might want versus like what they're actually uh influencing is very different. So when this thing spreads, I think uh I think it's borderline uh like it basically will feel impossible to change, which is unfortunate. I think that uh after a certain point, it almost takes something catastrophic to restructure. I guess it doesn't necessarily have to be catastrophic, but I it has to be some really big event that disrupts things. And so that could be like what they're people in the comments were talking about. People are like, "Hey, like based on what you're saying, like layoffs are coming, man. Like everyone's fingerpointing because they're trying to they're trying to make sure that they're defending themselves and like that's a bit like a survival mode almost, right?

Like, hey, like blame them. Like we're doing everything right on our end. Like don't don't touch us. It's it's them, right? It's a it's like a survival instinct. people are just trying to keep their jobs. So I I I think I agree like I think that's probably like things are pretty destable uh destabilized. There's uh defensiveness. There's probably some kind of like layoff situation coming. Is that going to be catastrophic enough where after that happens? Right. like it's going to whoever's getting laid off, that's going to be feel catastrophic. And whoever's left on teams that have, you know, shrunk down to basically nothing, that's going to feel catastrophic. But is that enough for the leadership folks that are making those decisions to feel that it's catastrophic? That might take a little bit longer before they go, "Oh, wait. We don't have, you know, we don't have a lot of the people that made this place awesome." Uh, oops.

like and so if it starts falling apart I like I said I think it takes something catastrophic unfortunately um and that again to me that's because it takes so much time energy and effort to try course correcting hiring in bad leaders it's not impossible I would never try to tell people like hey if you really believe in you know this place that you work uh if you really believe in it like give up don't bother. I just would also caution you that it is so much energy to try and make these things better that uh I think having awareness and trying to catch them early is like the best advice that I could I could offer. Um by the way when I'm saying catch things early and like you know what do you do about that? Um, this is obviously very situational. I can't just like prescribe what to do, but uh I think that involves like documenting and managing up, right?

Like, you know, to to oversimplify it, those aren't easy conversations, but um the more that people kind of pretend like something's not happening um and just kind of like push it under the rug, like that's just going to perpetuate problems like this. So anyway, I'm getting it across. But I hope that's helpful in some way. Uh I don't know, but I have uh where all this is coming from is like I've seen things like this happen. I have seen really bad leaders come in and uh cause huge disruptions like huge disruptions in culture and productivity uh thinking they're helping. Uh I have seen the effect of those people being uh gone and um I have seen the impact when multiple of those people come in over time.

Uh and then um also secondhand I have seen the impact of like uh of many of those people coming in not like basically almost to the same point that this person's describing but that would be secondhand and I say secondhand as in like um I was not there but uh hearing the same consistent story from like dozens of people like it's it basically lines up with this kind of thing. So, uh I would attribute a lot of what this person's uh experiencing to new bad leaders. So, um do better hiring leaders. Yeah, hopefully that's helpful just for something to think through. But that's my thought on that. Uh if you got questions about software engineering, career development, leave them below in the comments. Otherwise, go to codecomute.com and I'm happy to make a video response like this and share it with you and other folks. See you the next one.