Do people laugh a lot in your workplace? If the answer is yes, realize that's a strength for your company, argues Satyam Vaghani, CTO of the virtualized storage company PernixData. In an interview with The Enterprisers Project, Vaghani explains why workplace laughter is so important.
The Enterprisers Project (TEP): We hear jokes and pranks are an important part of the culture at PernixData. How did this come about?
Vaghani: I would love to claim otherwise, but the truth is that there was no deliberate attempt to make humor a part of PernixData's culture. It just turned out that way. Humor is a very personal trait — you either have it, or you don't. And even when (you think) you have it, it is highly subjective as to what others think about your funny side. So unlike other cultural aspects such as integrity, respect, and empathy for customers, this is a cultural element that cannot be mandated. If it happens, it happens.
Of course, it is a big deal if it happens because it is probably the only cultural trait of an organization that cannot ever be copied. Organizations often mimic other successful companies by the way they create products, interact with customers, provide benefits to employees, and so on. But there is no way to mimic the humor aspect of an organization because there is no amount of training that can get you there. This is why, of all the cultural traits of PernixData, I love this one the most. It is one of the things that makes us unique. A positive cultural trait that cannot be copied is hugely competitive for recruiting.
TEP: Do the benefits of humor go beyond recruiting?
Vaghani: It is also a big deal because good humor is almost always a sign of creativity. You have to be very creative to come up with a good joke or a good prank. Good humor in real time takes it one step further; it shows intellectual agility, or the ability to think quickly on your feet. It turns out that creativity and mental agility are rare but crucial characteristics of great software engineers, which happen to be our bread and butter. The path-breaking software is more of an art than a science, and the more creative the artists are the better the outcome. I believe the same goes for other aspects of business such as marketing, recruiting, sales, support, and so on, but my opinion is not authoritative on those.
TEP: When did you first realize that PernixData was going to be a funny place to work?
Vaghani: I have personally always enjoyed a good joke or a good prank, more so if I was part of it. In PernixData's case, along the way we coincidentally ended up hiring enough people with great senses of humor that we had a quorum to do off-beat things. Again, I think it was purely coincidental, so we can't claim credit for it.
What we can claim credit for, though, is that we put all this talent to good use from the very early days, and it has paid off now as a core and differentiating part of our company culture. We made a different recruiting video that worked well for hiring in a highly competitive job market, and one of our recruits also came up with a fun way to tell the PernixData story via a comic strip.
TEP: It looks like you don't take yourselves too seriously.
Vaghani: Startups are stressful enough that if you do take yourself too seriously, you might not last for the longer run. Humor is crucial for the long-term health and success of any organization.
TEP: Data is something most companies are serious about — how do you balance that against PernixData's unserious culture?
Vaghani: It is true that storage is serious business, but it is important to point out that seriousness is called for when you are proving the value of your product and maturity of the team to the customer, or when you are proving the strength of your support or engineering, etc.
At the end of the day, a lot of interactions between an enterprise software company and its customers are in the context of the day-to-day work, PoCs, support calls, product feedback calls, customer appreciation events, etc. It's critical to realize that these interactions are between humans first and between corporations second. If humans don't enjoy working with each other, the corporations won't either. If anything, some amount of humor thrown in with a lot of empathy for the customer helps the client relate to you more, and by transitivity, with your company. If you don't enjoy working with each other, the corporations won't either.
We live in a socially transparent world, and now is the time for the face of humans to become the face of a company instead of the other way around.
TEP: How do you ensure new hires will fit into this fun-loving culture? Is it something you look for in the hiring process and if so, how?
Vaghani: It is not mandatory for new PernixData hires to subscribe to the same set of values. In fact, we don't look for an exact fit in that sense. Doing that could destroy the organization due to a lack of diversity.
We also end up getting some of this naturally because the hires are partly a reflection of the interviewers. So if the interviewers have some of these traits, you are bound to get some of it in your hires.
It is no different than how easy or difficult it is to hire for other traits of a company's culture. For example, it is equal, if not harder to measure a person's moral standards or their customer service skills.
TEP: What advice would you give other CTOs or CIOs about creating a light-hearted culture in their workplace?
Vaghani: The one thing I can recommend from personal experience is that if you spot such talent, you could encourage people with this trait to do interesting things, whether you are part of it or not. Before you know it, it might become a self-sustaining force that adds a new dimension to your organization.
Also, in my opinion, it is a mistake to think, at least in the case of humor, that a leader needs to lead by example. We've all heard of tales where this has gone horribly wrong. A leader, in this case, only needs to nudge people with the right talent. A naturally funny person just needs to get the subtle signal that it is OK in this organization to be naturally funny. This could be something as simple as a senior person liking a humorous conversation in a company's social network to send the subtle signal that it is OK to have a little fun now and then. The absence of these subtle signals is often what prevents people from being their natural selves, especially when it comes to humor, and making their mark on a company's culture. Such signals are also critical in making newer employees feel invited to the fun.
It's also important for leaders to use this as a critical weapon in their arsenal, and as such treat it with a lot of respect. Often humor is taken as a hobby whereas other characteristics such as customer service and ethics are considered to be mission-critical traits of a company's culture. Humor, used in the right way to motivate employees, to relate to customers in a more human way, to recruit new talent, etc. is an equally critical and strategic weapon.
It is one weapon that many companies will never have even if they try because, as I said earlier, it is a trait that you cannot train your employees for. You either have it, or you don't.
