Seeing a colleague at Stripe set them up as their own background recently, I was reminded of the beautiful posters that Facebook teams plastered in gorgeous type on the physical walls in offices around the world. From Menlo Park to Mumbai, each of them offered visceral reminders of specific ideas that drove individuals on each team and how they wanted to show up every day as individuals and as a team. Whether it be choosing action over the alternative, to taking ownership of any of the company’s problems as one’s own (and doubly so if one’s own team might benefit from it), or blaming and fixing systems rather than point fingers on people; each statement and provocation was handcrafted by individuals that cared enough to walk in to the Analog Laboratory to print the start of a new conversation they wanted the company to have. Some more powerful then others, some gaining enough engagement and popularity to find themselves on everyone’s walls — a physical reincarnation of the original Facebook wall.
Now as I am trying to nurture culture with my team, I’m trying to put up my own metaphorical posters. What I’m finding is that physical walls make a much better surface for these than the virtual ones I now frequent.
