Lessons from Peter Griffin on why values need more than wall art.
We’re not Goldfish, We’re Bluefin Tuna
Why quality standards, not short attention spans, are driving today's digital consumption.
If you don’t actively engage in your company’s culture, you become Peter Griffin fused to his couch.
Family Guy is my favorite background show. When there’s nothing to watch in this world of dozens of streaming services and millions of movies and TV shows available at the flick of a button, Seth MacFarlane’s classic animated sitcom is my go-to.
The other day, one of my favorite FG episodes aired: “Are You There God? It’s Me, Peter,” which originally aired in May of 2018. The show opens with Peter spending an entire weekend on the couch binging a free premium channel from his cable company, and he becomes permanently stuck to it. It takes a dark turn after that due to a real tragic event that inspired it, but it got me thinking of company culture.
I know I’m weird like that. Peter’s skin fused to the couch because he didn’t move for three days, and that’s what can happen to culture if you’re not actively fostering it.
You probably have the company’s values posterized in your lobby, and there’s probably a tagline you repeat in meetings, but what’s happening after you walk past that wall or between Zoom meetings?
If your team is partially hybrid or fully remote, you might use a performance management platform. Good idea, right? It streamlines the process of evaluating performance, setting goals, and providing feedback.
Often, when you lean too hard into software, you can sometimes set it and forget it. Remember the old Ron Popeil infomercial for his at-home rotisserie appliance that was so easy to use you could “set it and forget it”?
Well, company culture can’t be bought for 4 easy payments of $39.95. Plus shipping and handling.
I’ve done a bunch of podcasts and YouTube shows for thought leaders in the world of HR, and the recurring theme that comes up is that we are constantly overcomplicating the already complicated. And then once we do that, we just leave it alone.
It’s like handing someone all the pieces of a puzzle without showing them a picture of what it’s supposed to look like.
Show them what culture looks like. Your company culture should begin with two steps:
That’s it. You can add your favorite toppings and make it look like a piece of art that can be framed in a 27×40-inch poster, but that’s all you need to get started.
But that’s just a start. You can’t “set it and forget it.”
Remember the aforementioned ‘performance management platform’? Do you consistently interact with and refresh the system, or have you left it unchanged since installation?
You might get fused to the couch.
Is your email full of unanswered emails from fellow co-workers?
You might get fused to the couch.
Do you never randomly Slack, DM, or email people on your team, just to see what’s up?
You might get fused to the couch.
We’ve all heard the cliché, “culture happens when no one’s looking.” We all get what it means, but not its full meaning. The last word is important, ‘looking’ — we all need to constantly keep looking and looking out for each other, from leadership down to interns and back.
Don’t get stuck, lose track, and check boxes, because when your culture gets stuck on the couch, your best humans will find a place where it doesn’t.
