A few weeks ago, one of the organizations I work with started its board meeting with the icebreaker, “tell us something about yourself that most people don’t know”. Someone shared that he had carried the torch in an Olympic relay. Then, even more surprisingly, he showed us the actual Olympic torch.
This created quite a stir. The Olympic torch? What was he doing with it? Wasn’t the Olympic torch a one-of-a-kind item passed hand-to-hand, for thousands of miles, from Greece to the site of the Olympics?
“Wait, wait, wait,” he blurted out after noticing our confusion. “You don’t pass the torch. You pass the flame”.
That certainly explained a lot. But once my confusion subsided, his story continued to resonate because I’ve been thinking a lot about corporate culture. And that phrase – don’t pass the torch, pass the flame – manages to capture in seven words exactly how I think about corporate culture.
Too many people think that corporate culture is something you design. That first you do a product plan, then you put together your marketing plan, and finally you sit down and write out what you want your culture to be. Then you do a PowerPoint, create some-break room posters, put it on your HR materials and you’re done.