The dangers of a “growth at all costs” culture
Growth is seen as the holy grail of success and makes for great attention-grabbing business headlines. And yet, the recent BrewDog saga should serve as a cautionary tale to all companies focused on relentless growth above all else.
Why did BrewDog’s employees use their social media mastery to blow apart their culture myth?
After building one of the most attractive and edgy brands in the business, BrewDog fell victim to its own PR. The very social media platforms it had mastered since it started trading, was now being used by current and former employees to throw the spotlight on some home truths about the BrewDog culture, destroying the company’s carefully crafted image in a matter of days.
The stratospheric rise of BrewDog from a Dragon’s Den reject to a venture capital-backed industry leader was swift. The company was widely expected to go public in the next two years.
Two of the complaints levelled at the company’s founders were that it promoted a ‘cult of personality’ and ‘growth at all costs’. The company culture, which was so well publicised and positioned seemed to have a much darker side.
While BrewDog might be one of the highest-profile cases, they certainly aren’t the only business guilty of putting growth above everything else and failing to create and maintain a healthy and productive company culture along with rapid growth returns. Revolut was another.
Often, the introduction of VC funding can drastically change the focus of a company towards a growth at all costs mentality, and leaders - many of whom are young and inexperienced entrepreneurs when they receive funding, often default to leading by singular commercial indicators on spreadsheets rather than working on the whole holistic value creation approach, including the preservation and promotion of culture as a wealth and value metric.
Why is company culture so important in growth?
Peter Drucker once said that ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’ and Mark Benieoff, CEO at Salesforce updated that to say ‘culture eats strategy for lunch and dinner’. Now, he didn’t mean that strategy wasn’t important, but he knew that real success can only be achieved by a stable and empowered culture.
While it’s absolutely possible to build a ‘growth culture’, this is a lot different than sacrificing culture in pursuit of that growth.
Jane Reoch, Investment Director at Mobeus Equity Partners agrees “Keeping the original culture of any business is essential. It drives the ethos of the company which is central to employee motivation and engagement.
A funding round does change things: financial growth, employee numbers and the role of senior management. It’s imperative for founders to maintain regular communication with employees as a full group, and to still make time for employees one-on-one. The best fast-growth businesses maintain both fun and togetherness”
Fiona McKay, Head of Value Creation at Lightbulb says ‘There is nothing guaranteed to de-rail or de-value an investment, than a whole load of cultural issues that start to unravel. Investors with a particular focus on ESG have a much broader understanding and place significant focus on culture, as it is central to the purpose of a company, its value proposition and critical to how it will scale. Leaders often overlook the fact that culture has a value, and it can be quantified.’
How to build a company culture
Building and maintaining a successful and positive culture is an ongoing task and it takes work. In order to build a growth culture, you’ll need to have the following in place:
A compelling company purpose, vision and mission
An environment where employees feel psychologically safe to not only do their jobs but contribute their ideas with a level of autonomy to growth, scale and change without social or personal penalty
An honest approach to strengths and weaknesses at all levels within the organisation
Continuous learning and investment in development
Seek and act on feedback from employees across all of the organisation
Work on your culture from the inside out
Companies with great cultures can and should shout about it from the rooftops. Not only will it help their brand image, but it also helps them attract top talent and reap the bottom-line benefits and top-line returns.
The problems come when you start promoting the culture you want to have, rather than investing the time to build it and the resources to preserve and promote it.
Sooner or later, employees will make themselves heard on an open platform, and then it is a question of how much damage it will do to your business.
Can BrewDog completely recover from this? Only time will tell. Perhaps it will lead to a cultural revolution within the company, and in 18 month’s-time we’ll be writing about how successful they’ve been, or maybe it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
One thing is for certain, a growth at all costs mentality will not lead to any lasting or real value creation.
Further resources
Are you a fast-growth company and want to know how much your culture is valued at? Find out more about our value creation solutions for companies here.
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