Values & Virtues / The Startup Podcast

Learning from the codes of the samurai to bring company values to life

The seeds of organisational success are planted early. That’s why at Circular, although we are still young, we have already invested heavily in defining what is important to us in our culture. As we scale and go through the strain of rapid growth, knowing who we are is what will allow us to thrive.

Why is it so important to invest in culture?

Culture links to identity. Strong culture in an organisation drives mutual loyalty and commitment.

Culture is peer-to-peer. There doesn’t need to be a “boss” watching for people to adhere to the culture.

Culture is self-perpetuating. New members of a group adopt the existing culture.

These things make culture powerful, and just as importantly they make it scalable.

As founders at Circular, we have all experienced a mix of corporate cultures: good, bad, and indifferent. We have seen the massive difference culture can make.

We want to make sure our culture is excellent.

Wallpaper Values

Many organisations proclaim a set of values, ostensibly designed to guide the culture. They rarely work, and are widely mocked because all too often they are “wallpaper values”: they make for a nice poster on a wall, but they don’t actually do anything to influence culture.

At Circular we do not want wallpaper values. Our values are statements of what matters to us as an organisation. Our values take a point of view. And we expect our values to earn their keep: a value is only useful if it makes it easier to make good decisions and stay aligned, and to perpetuate the culture we desire.

Even good organisational values fall flat in practice because on their own, they are not enough. By design, values are broad and can be interpreted in different ways. Values need to be durable and universal, and so they by necessity are abstract and general. As guides for everyday behaviour, they are inadequate.

Virtues to the Rescue

In Ben Horowitz’s excellent book “What You Do Is Who You Are”, it is explained that the Samurai lived by a code of virtues. They venerated actions and conduct in accordance with their virtues above nearly anything else, and this was foundational to their strong and durable culture.

At Circular, we have taken inspiration from the samurai: alongside each of our values, we associate a number of virtues: concrete behaviours that are associated with the value and are manifestations of it. If a value is something you believe, a virtue is something you do because of that belief.

Virtues provide specific guidance about “good” behaviour within a culture and in accordance with its values.

For example, one of our values at Circular is “Seek Unusual Knowledge”. As much as we believe in this value, it is not much use on its own. So we have a number of virtues that go with it. One of these virtues is “Explain Your Reasoning”. In other words, as a Seeker Unusual Knowledge, you must be mindful explain your reasoning. Furthermore, you have a right and a duty to expect others to explain their reasoning too. At Circular, we ask “why”.

In the six or so months since we’ve introduced virtues alongside our values, I can say that they have done much to strengthen our culture. The directness of virtues, the ability to prompt people to behave in a certain specific way, is the missing piece that animates our company values and liberates them from being mere wallpaper.

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We have had some phenomenal guests on The Startup Podcast lately.

Last week we had Kyle Poyar, the world’s most eloquent and outspoken advocate of Product Led Growth.

Prior to that we had had Marty Cagan, the public intellectual of product development, author of Inspired and Empowered.

A few weeks earlier we hosted Casey Winters, Chief Product Officer at Eventbrite, and a leading light in the world of Growth: he has held pivotal roles at Pinterest, Grubhub, Canva, Thumbtack and more, and is a Partner at Reforge.

Chris Saad (my partner in crime) and I publish a new episode every week. Whether we host a guest or it’s just the two of us, our aim is always the same: to bring the unique Silicon Valley mindset and knowledge to a broad audience all over the world, with clear and actionable insights. And of course: we explain our reasoning!

I would absolutely love it if you could follow The Startup Podcast (on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or anywhere else good podcasts are found), listen to some episodes, and let me know what you think! It’s become a bit of a passion project, and many of you will enjoy the content… especially if you’re interested in startups.