Help wanted:  How do maintain your “culture” as you grow?

If I wanted to write an ad about life at THP and HDS these days, that would likely be the title.

It's not that I'm complaining.  Life is pretty good.  Did you see the opening segment on "60 Minutes" this week?  Scott Pelley did a story on the "99ers," the group of folks who have exhausted their 99 weeks of unemployment benefits. The bone-chilling part was him hosting a large group of them in Silicon Valley and the frightening number of them who identified themselves those who have received PHD's or master's degrees.  If things are going well for us, we should count ourselves among the fortunate.

But as we grow there are reminders about how things change.  My wife last night reminded me that I once said I never wanted the company to be larger than 12 people (we will soon be 16).  An old boss and mentor of mine saw our construction and recently asked how many people we had working for us and said "oh, you're at THAT size now?"

THAT size has me re-asking myself and the folks here about things like:

• Our structure, which has been relatively flat.
• Our informality, which I think has served us well.
• Our ability to communicate with each other effectively, which is always a struggle.
• Our ability to help each other and work together, while we work on different projects and accounts.
• Our respect for one another, which has and might continue to suffer.  This includes respecting each others' work, space, etc.
• Our roles and responsibilities, which will likely continue to change.
• The services we offer, or don't.

Our culture (for lack of a better word) has served us well I think.  In eight years you can count the number of people who have left us on one hand.  Most of those have left due to family reasons, including an epidemic of sorts where people were leaving in droves because their husbands were getting jobs in Seattle.

So how do you hold on to the best of that culture by acknowledging that things will change and that change is good?  How do you get the "old-timers" to understand that things will never be like it was in the good old days, while incorporating the new folks into an ever-changing world?

Part of it I guess is trusting your instincts and your people.  Part of it is setting some boundaries.  Part of it is admitting publicly that you don't have all the answers even though the folks who work for you expect you to.

As I told one of them the other day, " when I was in your shoes I expected the boss to be aware of everything and was mystified when he or she didn't, now that I am boss I think I have a good handle on most things but obviously can't know everything.  I need everyone's help to make sure I'm not missing anything."

I'd love to have some help from the class on this one.  Any thoughts or tips to help me with any of the issues I've raised?

They would be greatly appreciated.