Culture, Values & A Commitment to Creating A Fantastic Workplace

Skimming April’s edition of Inc. magazine early this morning and came across this great quote from Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures (V.C. Firm) as he recently laid out his tips for building a strong company (organization):

“You have to start with culture, values and a commitment to creating a fantastic workplace.

You can’t fake these things.

They have to come from the top.

They are not bull****. They are everything.”

The reason this hit me so hard today was that Nick and I got to spend time yesterday with Bill Strickland and his amazing team at Manchester Bidwell Corporation and the National Center for Arts & Technology. (If you don’t know about Bill, you need to check him out immediately. Best way is probably this Ted video.) Or, you can read his terrific book titled Make the Impossible Possible.

Nick and I were involved in a half-day session with Bill and his team and Sally Osberg, President of the Skoll Foundation, who had just flown in from London.

The whole idea of starting… and continuing… with a culture, values and a commitment to creating a fantastic workplace is everything that Bill Strickland and his team are doing at MBC and NCAT.

While we talked about intellectual property, curriculum, training, etc… the real value proposition of NCAT is around much higher principles espoused by Bill and emulated by his entire team.

Gentle reminder to all For Impact leaders that if you can ‘play the game’ at 30,000’… everything else just falls in place.

Special Note: Sally made our day when she said, regarding Social Entrepreneurs and Social Enterprise:

“The Holy Grail is Impact.”