I had an opportunity to explain start-up culture to a friend tonight. And being one to never shy away from an analogy…
Joining a start-up is like joining a jazz trio for daily jam sessions.
(Image Credit – Fixed Image via Flickr)
So what’s a jazz jam session like? I think of a bunch of deeply talented folks, each with their area of expertise, brought together in a room, playing off the energy of the community there and riffing off of each other. They know their instruments well and often come to the table with years of jazz experience. They improv and go with the flow. The pace is snappy but confident. There is potentially no rehearsal time. Perfection is not the name of the game but instead, creating something cool together. It’s about enjoying the time together and enjoying the imperfections that surface as signs of character. I explain start-up culture like this because it’s often hard to convey to someone who’s not familiar with it.
If you come from a large enterprise culture then you might be more familiar with another musical style, more like a symphony orchestra. Symphony orchestras are larger with many experts as well. These experts practice and plan a lot because the idea of the symphony is playing in perfect sync, no mistakes, no improvising. The beauty of a perfectly orchestrated symphony is simply music to our ears. Symphony orchestras produce some amazing music, like jazz trios, but the processes to produce the music and the results are very, very different.
Let’s say you are joining a jazz trio (aka start-up) as a drummer or sax player. The other jazz players generally don’t practice ahead for their nightly sessions. They “be” the music and would look for the drummer to immediately pick up on this and just go with the flow. Over the following week the new drummer would focus on fitting into the groove, the pace and the style of the existing players. He or she may also start introducing new flavors of drumming to add their own feel and help the group grow in a new way. Learning happens through doing and the doing starts day one because the group needs a drummer. If you were used to playing the drums in a symphony orchestra then this approach could completely throw you at first.
So imagine joining a symphony orchestra as the drum player instead. You would practice lots in advance to get up to speed, perhaps getting recordings of the orchestra to play (plan out) on your own first. You would also have lots of sheet music to go on for practicing. Before you performed in front of the audience (community) you would invest a lot in planning/practice time, until you felt you met the requirements.
Both have require processes. Both attract different types of musicians. Some folks successfully cross over. Some folks discover to their pleasure that they’ve been trapped in one style and when they try the other process/style they feel like they’ve truly come home.
So what type are you more aligned with? Does the analogy work for you?
Tags: culture, employment, startup, strategy
