It had the atmosphere of a nightclub. Veroniek Collewaert stepped inside Uber's San Francisco headquarters about four years ago. The neon lights and dark rooms made her feel like she had walked into a nightclub.

'There is scientific research that shows that if you put people in poorly lit rooms, it leads to unethical, selfish behavior. That may not be the smartest thing to do when collaboration is one of the core values," Collewaert says in the Work Professor podcast.

Collewaert is professor of entrepreneurship at Vlerick Business School, founder and director of both Vlerick Scale Up Centre and founder and academic director of European Scale Up Institute.

In the podcast, she talks about the importance of building a strong company culture. Startups can differentiate themselves from large companies by establishing a unique company culture. Only question is, does such a thing work? For that, Collewaert has developed a four-step model together with professor Andreea Gorbatai.

4 steps for corporate culture

Step one is to articulate the shared mindset. What exactly is your culture? This is not as easy as it seems. Articulating values can sometimes remain vague, so make sure they are concrete and actionable. Also, the formulation of the desired culture should be actionable. In doing so, look beyond just the "hollow slogans" and really put down something that actually has meaning.

Step two is about spreading the culture. This is still often done by simply hanging the leaves on the wall. Collewaert tips, "Start proactively finding moments to really bring people together. That way you keep each other connected to each other and to your company. Cultural values must be reflected not only in words, but also in actions.

This is followed by embedding the culture in hr processes, such as recruitment, and performance evaluations. If this is not done, it is difficult to keep it alive. This can be done, for example, in recruiting new employees, where as a recruiter you have to look closely at whether you are hiring someone based on culture fit or social fit.

In conclusion, a culture is never static. It is necessary to evaluate it regularly and adapt it to changes inside and outside the company. So too with employees. If someone is performing, but does not fit within the culture, this must be taken into account. 'If you're really serious about culture, you have to look at both and they should have equal weight.'

Three takeaways from the podcast:

• Performance = results + behavior - Collewaert emphasizes that performance should not only be measured in results, but also in how employees behave according to the company's core values or norms and values.
• Culture fit versus social fit - Companies sometimes tend to select new employees based on how well they "fit on a team. This is often about personal similarities or fluency. A person may click well socially with colleagues, but if their behavior or work attitude does not align with the company's values, it can be detrimental in the long run.
• Action-oriented core values - Define core values in action-oriented terms so that it is clear what concrete behavior is expected in the organization.

‍