Melissa Porterfield, CEOIn an interview, Melissa Porterfield, CEO of Silk Mountain, shares her valuable insights on how the firm enables companies and startups to spur immersive cultural transformation that involves both employees and leadership.
Could you tell us a little more about yourself and the conception story of Silk Mountain?
I’m passionate about helping technology startups and small companies in their formative stages. My passion for company culture stems from my experience as an HR leader in several technology companies.
I had worked in a number of negative work environments with little ability to influence the culture. Shortly after Silk Mountain launched, I earned a certification in Human Synergistics™. The company has an assessment that allows the company to compare its current culture with its desired culture. It works very well for companies that have been in business for 3-5 years.
I started Silk Mountain in 2017 with a clear purpose. I wanted to focus on organizational culture and employee engagement. I help my clients define and design their ideal culture/work environment before they start hiring, when possible. Our firm mainly focuses on culture design and transformation because we recognize the importance of company culture, its impact on employees, and how it impacts the company’s bottom line. We take an inclusive approach that develops a healthy culture transformation strategy involving both leadership and employees.
What are the challenges your clients face with regard to transforming culturally?
Currently, employees have many options to switch over to new jobs if they aren’t satisfied with their current job or work environment. In addition, the pandemic-induced “Great Resignation” has increased voluntary turnover and turnover is expensive! The average voluntary turnover rate is currently twelve percent and the average cost of voluntary turnover is 6 to 9 months of the employee’s salary. It is even higher for executives and those costs directly hit the bottom line.
In my experience, startups and small companies are often missing a well-defined culture and ideal work environment. (This is not to say that larger companies don’t have their own culture challenges). I’ve also found that many new CEOs and executive teams lack the expertise to design and maintain a positive work culture. This results in decreased employee engagement, which translates into lower productivity. The cost of low productivity also hits the bottom line.
This is where we come into the picture. With our innovative employee-centric strategies and attention to detail, we help startups and small companies benefit from inclusive and positive work cultures. The CEO owns the culture and actively participates. They must take accountability for the culture, walk the talk, and not tolerate negative behaviors, especially from their other leaders.
Walk us through how Silk Mountain’s services help enterprise leaders foster culture transformation.
We help CEOs and other executive team members learn and demonstrate the required competencies to lead a positive and inclusive organizational culture. Our company offers training and coaching for leaders at all levels indecision-making, communication, and leadership skills. We have an extensive library of trainings, including a course for new managers.
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We help our clients actively participate in an immersive culture transformation strategy that results in a positive work environment
Silk Mountain believes that a sustainable culture turnaround in an organization comes from active leadership participation and requires some creativity. For instance, while working closely with a biotech CEO, I asked her if she would design posters that best represented the company’s values. As this startup operated in the veterinary sector, she designed her posters with images of dogs that visually represented each value. My personal favorite is an image of a robot Dalmatian with “Innovation” printed on the image. She framed the posters and hung them in the front entrance area and continually received positive feedback from everybody who entered the lobby. This is just one of the many creative ways in which we encourage participation in cultivating a positive work culture that ultimately drives business profitability and growth.
Could you throw more light on Silk Mountain’s client engagement process?
We begin engaging with clients by creating company-wide focus groups for employees and leaders, separately to gather data on their observations about the current culture. Employees can speak freely regarding the positive and negative situations they encounter in the workplace. After reporting my findings to the CEO, everyone is invited to complete a Human Synergistic assessment. Without compromising anonymity, we share the results with the CEO followed by the leadership team and the employees.
CEOs are often surprised by the depth and breadth of the data. The report reveals the current vs. the desired culture. The culture is presented quantitatively followed by a qualitative list of the behaviors that drive the current culture and the behaviors needed for the desired culture. We then meet with leaders and employees to determine how to close the gap. Based on this, we collectively create action plans along with the strategies to implement them.
What differentiates Silk Mountain from its competitors?
Our level of expertise working with tech startups has given us a unique edge in understanding the culture challenges that are specific and common among them. Our cultural transformation strategies weave organizational culture into the very fabric of our client’s people, processes, and leadership.
Silk Mountain also helps and trains clients to hire candidates that are a fit for their cultures, while ensuring that diversity, in all its forms, doesn’t fall off the radar. Teaching employees work skills is far easier than trying to teach employees to fit in the culture.
In essence, we help clients embrace an immersive culture transformation strategy that can be measured and reinforced to maintain a positive work environment.
