In the tech world, the term “full-stack” might conjure up images of engineers and developers fine-tuning software.
But to Nichole Sterling, the description assumes a different meaning when contextualizing her role at Stateless, as she has previously described herself as a “full-stack director of people + culture.”
“From a people and culture perspective, being full-stack means understanding the underlying human cognitive, emotional and social dynamics that drive the outward expression of our behavior and, ultimately, our culture,” she said.
That integrative mindset helps anchor Sterling’s role as vice president of people and culture at the Boulder-based startup, whose tech supports companies with creating cloud networks.
For the two-year company veteran, that entails putting into practice the organization’s “five S’s” — supportive, sincere, studious, striving and stateless — to develop a culture that’s in sync with the company’s growth.
And, as Sterling emphasizes, culture is something that must always be tended to.
“Build your framework, fine-tune how to reinforce behavior, iterate on it once a quarter and ultimately be willing to hire, separate and grow based on it,” she said. “Nothing will communicate your culture more than a company’s willingness to do that.”
Recently, Sterling shared with Built In Colorado the approach she applies to spearheading culture-building at the organization.
About the Tech
Describe your approach to building what you describe as “science-backed” culture.
Everyone can benefit from utilizing the scientific method in everyday business life, but more importantly, reading quality research helps inform people, process and profits. One tip I pulled from the scientific method is the idea of trying to disprove your own theory. Too often we pull information to prove our theories, but looking for alternative explanations builds humility. The ability to dig deep for answers that are right for the business — not necessarily to show I’m right — means we are in service of the company, not my own self-interest.
So, creating science-backed cultures requires a curious mind; more often than not, you have to be open to research that tells you what you are doing may not be effective.
What informed this approach?
Wanting to create effective individuals, teams, and organizations that want to grow ultimately informed the approach.
Over the years, I’ve seen people get so stuck in their “expertise.” Yes, being an expert in something has advantages like knowing how to execute, but too often we see folks absolutely “know” something instead of being curious. If they are an influential figure, then many people will blindly follow along because of the expertise biases we have. Then, a set of decisions leads down a path and we see that people won’t want to renege on their decisions because they have already invested time and energy into the plan. At every step of the way, we commit systemic thinking errors that could have been avoided had we understood the logical fallacies we fall prey to on a daily basis.
Wanting to create effective individuals, teams and organizations that want to grow ultimately informed the approach.”
What does this look like in practice?
Right now, I’m working on a performance management system. For us, “performance” is both the cultural as well as the technical aspects of your job. So, I’m looking to implement processes that reinforce our power habits of building simple, scalable and evolvable tech in supportive, sincere, striving, studious, and stateless ways.
To do that, we need to understand what actually creates a habit. Research tells us that the best way to create habits is to change the environment, make behavior rewarding and then figure out how to repeat the behaviors so that it’s automatic.
Let’s take our “sincere” value: To really embed that behavior, we want to understand the physical and intangible aspects of our environment that would reinforce or discourage the behavior of going to the people we have an issue with. What processes do we have in place to support that behavior? Do our managers reinforce it? How is it rewarded? How do we build the capacity of our folks to make it automatic?
That’s what we mean by science-backed cultures: Using science and research to build out the people and process functions that ultimately drive profits, while trying to disprove your theories along the way.
How does this approach to culture benefit employees?
We all fall prey to systemic errors in thinking. It helps people see behaviors in a different way. Instead of ruminating on, “Oh, they are just being difficult,” we might say, “They have an unmet need,” or, “Perhaps they see their dignity being violated.” Again, it forces us to be curious rather than definitive.
Or, before making an important decision, we will make sure the group is diverse, therefore minimizing the degree of overlapping biases. Knowing how poor people and organizations are at making decisions may motivate us to create a team that assesses the quality of decisions made — much like a QA test team will assess how well the product is meeting expectations. Doing things like this increases effectiveness, decreases the time it takes to deal with conflict or poor decisions, but ultimately builds employee’s self-awareness on the points where execution is vulnerable simply because of how our brains are built.
Find a company that shares your values and pushes for excellence every day.”
How does this approach contribute to an employee’s growth or development?
It ultimately builds courage. Looking to be curious, talking to folks you are having difficulty with and building your capacity to be challenged takes courage. It takes courage to be reflective, to say “I’m sorry,” and to push for excellence. Being able to dive into what researchers and scientists are telling us about human behavior can sometimes pinch.
I see it all the time with our “sincerity” value. We don’t need research to tell us that holding onto things that bug us, or not addressing behaviors that negatively impact us, isn’t a good thing. It affects our productivity and mental health. But, I hear plenty of excuses of why someone won’t go talk to someone else, saying, “It’s not a good time” or, “Things have gotten better.”
Or, when talking about white privilege with other people who are white — the reality of impact on others is clear, but it pinches. It takes courage to face reality, practice providing dignity to others and raising issues that need to be addressed. That’s where the social scientist in me asks, “How are our structures reinforcing or discouraging the behavior we want to see?” I need to have the courage to help bring about those changes.
How does this type of culture benefit the business as a whole?
Understanding the processes and behaviors that help human beings flourish translates right into the bottom line for companies. If we get better at making decisions, understanding the facets of conflict and solving inefficiencies in our processes, then we move more quickly through quagmires, therefore out-pivoting the competition and increasing our gross margins.
