{"id":4156,"date":"2021-12-02T09:46:39","date_gmt":"2021-12-02T17:46:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cultureindex.io\/?p=4156"},"modified":"2021-12-02T09:48:32","modified_gmt":"2021-12-02T17:48:32","slug":"the-culture-interview-with-miranda-lievers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cultureindex.io\/fr\/2021\/12\/02\/the-culture-interview-with-miranda-lievers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Culture Interview with Miranda Lievers"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Miranda Lievers<\/a><\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Miranda Lievers<\/a> is an entrepreneur devoted to the intersection of small business and technology. As co-founder & COO of Thinkific<\/a>, she’s helped over 50,000 business owners earn over half a billion dollars with online courses to date while educating tens of millions around the globe. Before Thinkific, Miranda helped scale a team from 40 to 1600 people, jumped ship from corporate life, grew her side hustle to 7 figures, and decided to get her MBA just for fun.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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“One of the things I\u2019ve found to be most entertaining [about the recent news] is that I was more connected to the tech industry 10 years ago through Twitter and other things than I am lately. We have been so busy building Thinkific that we haven\u2019t lifted our heads to see what\u2019s going on in the industry and now we are a big and important member of the Vancouver tech community.\u201d
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How would you describe what you do in your job or an average workweek to a 5-year-old or a 95-year-old?<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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I run a company that helps people grow their companies by creating and delivering cool courses and other learning products online.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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How do you define the culture at the highest level? Would that definition change when we are talking about an organization? If so, how?<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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I think about culture as how we collectively think, act, and interact and the shared spoken and unspoken values and norms that create the space that we are in.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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If you could create the ideal organizational culture with no restrictions like cost and time what are the first three things that come to mind for you?<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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How I think about culture is that fundamentally, culture is created by, with, and for the people that are a part of it. One of the fallacies around nurturing culture is that it\u2019s created by one person who decides what they want it to be, rather than an intentional and constant iteration of all the people that are part of the culture and who are intentionally working together to continue to refine and build it over time.<\/p>

I\u2019d like to tell you a story about the evolution of our culture.<\/p>

Five years ago, when we were just 16 people, we did our first values exercise in which we thought about the values that were true to Thinkific at that point. One thing that I am quite grateful for is that we didn\u2019t want them to be inspirational, but rather wanted them to be true; true to who we were then. We went through the process of having lots of different words on the walls and everyone contributed to boiling it down to a set of our first core values. We labeled these original values as \u2018draft\u2019 and left them for a year.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Thinkific Values, November 2021.<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Fast forward to today and these values are the same core values we have five years later. Around the same time, we did our first employee survey and eNPS, but what I like most is the qualitative feedback on blockers; to know what\u2019s working and what\u2019s not, and to understand what needs to be changed, what needs to be different. Then, we listen and work on things that need attention and improvement. After 5 years, we continue this cadence each quarter and we figure it out, we try, we listen, we triage, and understand what we can tackle, and what we can make a little bit better.<\/p>

So, when people ask me what is amazing about Thinkific culture and what makes up our culture there is nothing that touches our team and our people that didn\u2019t come directly through that original survey or that wasn\u2019t touched by it.<\/span><\/p>

If we go back to the early days, people shared what they wanted to learn and understand: what the goals and strategy of the company were. We introduced OKRs (objectives and key results) based on their feedback. They wanted more feedback, so we moved from yearly feedback to twice per year, and then they wanted more so we did it quarterly. They wanted to feel more connected with the community such as through volunteer programs, so we added those.<\/span><\/p>

What it means now… Without any restraints what would I implement?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

No individual can dream or imagine how incredible a culture can be or how it can evolve. It\u2019s a million times better than anything I could have imagined. Culture is not about the caps, vacation policy, or any perks. It\u2019s about a group of passionate, committed people who want to be part of a group.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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When you think of poor organizational culture, what are the first things that come to mind?<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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