One office has skateboards, no dress code, and an open-door policy for canine coworkers. Another office has a business casual dress code and limits the canine inclusion to framed pictures on a desk.
Which office gets your people pumping out innovative ideas? Easy answer—neither.
Culture that fosters innovation requires striking the right balance between the two. When it comes to a soft workplace culture, most of us think of the fun stuff: perks, a casual vibe, and chatting up coworkers like lifelong friends. While those things are important, do not dismiss the value in hard workplace culture elements too. I’m talking standard policies, processes, and accountability. At the surface, these cultural concepts feel like mortal enemies, but the reality is the opposite: it takes two to make a thing go right. Heck, it takes to two to make it out of sight (Anyone else remember Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock? Please find me on LinkedIn so we can be friends if you do.)
I’m going to peel back the curtain and show you, the loyal curious reader, what that looks like for us at Aspect.
Haveeee you met Darryl Kelly? (How I Met Your Mother fans? Are my pop culture references dated? Daniella, how do we feel about keeping the references either way? Editor’s note: They’re dated, but I'll be nice.) If not, check out his LinkedIn and you’ll pick up on his energy: he’s comfortable being his authentic self. If I were to blindfold you and read his professional accolades, I bet many of you would guess this must be someone who wears suits to a cube farm office with a nice private executive suite. Nope, not even close. Don’t believe me? Get a glimpse of the Aspect leadership team at our new WeWork space. Pretty cool, right?
However, don’t mistake kindness for weakness. The warm and inviting collaborative atmosphere is the foundation that our diverse global team executes on major initiatives. Like, major—check out what we’ve done in a short period of time:
- We brought back the beloved Aspect brand
- Frost & Sullivan recognized Aspect as a Leader in WEM
- And we backed that up with 21 reasons why Aspect beats the competition.
- Have y’all heard we’re releasing Workforce Experience (WFX), our new next-gen WFM tool? Register here to learn more during an upcoming webinar.
- You can get the full run down of Aspect’s 2024 wins in our annual recap.
- Okay, done with the shameless plugs. I promise.
These initiatives didn’t happen with Aspect leadership handing us a box of crayons and letting us doodle our little hearts out (A guy can dream though, right?) Through discipline and structure, elements of hard workplace culture allowed us to squeeze the most out of our soft culture foundation. There were deadlines and if they moved, it was sooner rather than later. This is where accountability comes into play—those deadlines were tied to quarterly “Objectives and Key Results (OKRs),” which is fancy business talk for visible, transparent, and measurable goals for individuals, teams, and the company overall.
But what does this application of hard culture look like in practice? During the initial phases of development for our new product, WFX, a strict design sprint framework was utilized to push creativity, innovation, and accountability. A design sprint is simple, but far from easy: for Aspect, it was a 5-day, all-day, process of cross-functional teams coming together to have a prototype or mockup ready for testing. Each day built upon the last and focused on understanding the challenge, then working together to solve the challenge. This was done for 6 consecutive weeks and most of us were balancing it with our regular day-to-day work. That doesn’t sound soft to me!
As a proud participant in the design sprints, this is where the balance between soft and hard culture was perfectly demonstrated. The hard part was meeting the strict timelines for deliverables tied to OKRs. The soft part was how we went about doing it: creative freedom with an inclusive spirit. We all had different roles, but we were in it together. We laughed and developed weird inside jokes about confetti. We struggled and openly spoke about those challenges. We added songs to a shared Spotify list to keep spirits high while creative morale was running low. The soft culture enabled us to take creative risks because we felt psychologically safe and supported.
Cultivating this optimal balance of culture is a journey with no finish line. It requires self-awareness, honest feedback, and constant iterations. Remember: striving for perfection kills workforce innovation. The world's most innovative companies relentlessly pursue this sweet spot between soft and hard cultures. They recognize that culture is delicate and necessary to optimize employee morale.
Challenge yourself to bring more harmony between the soft and the hard parts of workplace culture. It's in that dynamic tension that real innovation can thrive.
