This week we dig into the Awesome Office archives to bring you one of our absolute favorite conversations.

From kid programmer in 1971 to Forbes cover story in 2003, Joy, Inc. author and Menlo Innovations CEO Richard Sheridan has never shied from challenges, opportunities, nor the limelight. His focus has always been around technology, but his passion is actually process, teamwork and organizational design, with one overarching goal: unlock the business value of Joy.

Strangely enough, it all began in 1967, when a ten year old Richard decided to surprise his parents by building a piece of furniture while they were away for the evening.

Hear his incredible journey to Menlo, and how culture became such a focus for Richard in this uncut interview.

Key Takeaways

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Building an authentic, employee-led company culture is what most of aspire to. It can be the key to making your org a magnet for talent. Retention and engagement suddenly become a breeze.

The problem - it’s a lot easier said than done.

As always, we’re here to help. This week we’ve got Joey Joyce on the podcast to share the secret to creating a culture inspired by your values, but built by your employees.

Joey is a senior team member at SnackNation, and the president of SnackNation’s Culture Committee. His insights provide a framework for launching a Culture Committee at your organization.

That’s what we dig into in this interview - tactics for launching, scaling, and maintaining an employee-led culture committee at your company.

Here are Joey’s tips for launching a successful culture committee at your organization:

1. Select a Representative from each department. Every department has its own needs, challenges, and subculture. Your committee should give everyone a seat at the table, and work towards a culture that works for all.
2. Write a Mission Statement. Your committee should have a specific, culture-related purpose in sight. It might be to improve communication, make the office healthier, or to just make the day more enjoyable. Our Mission Statement was to live the company’s values, spread joy and optimism with events that the team would enjoy, and break down departmental silos and increase collaboration.
3. Chart a Roadmap. Once you nail your mission, work backwards to create measurable goals and a path to achieve them.
4. Capture and Incorporate Feedback. Some initiatives you’ll knock out of the park, others will require some adjustment before you get them right. You won’t know what works unless you ask your team. Field surveys… or better yet, just talk to people!
5. When times are tough, AMF (Always Move Forward). One of the biggest challenges with a Culture Committee is that it’s basically extra work for everyone involved. Each member has her primary job responsibilities, which always come first. In any given week you might have an engineer struggling to ship a product on time or a salesperson feeling the pressure to hit her goal. The key, according to Joey, is to find the right balance and always move cultural initiatives forward. If only two people can meet for ten minutes, meet for ten minutes. Just AMF.
6. Break out into subcommittees. Scale your committee as your company grows by creating specialized subcommittees.
7. Practice Radical Responsibility. Ultimately, your Culture Committee will only work if members hold themselves accountable.

Is your company locked in departmental silos? Has communication stalled out? Is energy down, or morale dipped a little low?

A Company Summit might just be what the doctor ordered. Company Summits are a great way to unleash your creativity and tap into your team's collective brain power.

But let’s not beat around the bush - company summits can be expensive. On top of out-of-pocket cost for things like venue, catering, coffee, and snacks, there’s the opportunity cost of having your entire company away from the office for half a day or more. You have to be strategic in order to make your summit worth the investment. 

So how do you make sure that your Summit is a hit and not a flop? AO host Sean Kelly has thrown a ton of these over his 12+ year entrepreneurial career. He's here to tell you how to design your next summit for maximum ROI.

Sean's Top Tips for Throwing an ROI-Positive Company Summit

1. Prepare. The old adage that failing to prepare is prepare to fail definitely holds true here. You need clear cut goals, a dialed itinerary, and quality presenters.
2. Determine the top problems you want your team to tackle. Figure out the biggest challenges your company faces, and unleash your team on them.
3. Choose a moderator or facilitator. You'll need someone MCing to keep the group focused and schedule on track.  If you don’t have someone on your team who fits the bill, consider hiring someone.
4.  Maximize cross department collaboration. Break up those cliques! Don't allow people to pick where they sit or who they team-up with. Instead, purposefully seat people from opposite sides of the house together for lunch and for break out sessions.
5. Solicit high quality, vetted presentations by your best speakers. Keep these in the morning, have lots of back and forth and audience participation, ad reserve afternoons for breakout sessions.
6. Put your teams of employees to work. Allow for teams to present their findings and compete with other teams to keep them accountable for putting in real work and presenting in a fun way
7. Slot in lots of breaks and movement. Jumping jacks and hi-fives help keep the mood and energy up.
8. Do NOT allow for a heavy lunch or energy-zapping snacks/food/drinks. (SnackNation can help you with all your snacking needs.)
9. Book an inspiring space that allows for breakouts. A good rule of thumb - the venue should be cooler than your office space! No hotel ballrooms or lame event spaces.
10. Provide alcohol at the end of the day. (But not too much.)
11. Don't make your summit too long! This should feel like intense work, but should not be massively draining
12. Take notes. Designate someone to capture the best ideas. Remember, you want to walk away with more than just good vibes!
13. Follow up. Make sure you connected with your leadership team afterwards and are aligned around expectations.