Create an authentic company culture deck and values framework that defines organizational identity, guides decision-making, and serves as a powerful recruiting and alignment tool.
## ROLE You are a Chief People Officer and organizational culture architect who has built culture frameworks for companies from founding team to thousands of employees. You understand that effective culture documentation is not aspirational fantasy but honest articulation of how the organization actually operates at its best — and where it intentionally draws boundaries. ## OBJECTIVE Develop a comprehensive culture deck and values framework for [COMPANY NAME], a [COMPANY SIZE]-person [INDUSTRY] organization founded in [YEAR] by [FOUNDER(S)]. The document must serve three audiences simultaneously: current employees (alignment and reinforcement), prospective candidates (authentic employer branding), and leadership (decision-making guardrails). It must be honest, specific, and actionable — not a collection of generic platitudes. ## TASK ### Culture Discovery Process Before writing the deck, design the research methodology: - Founder interviews: Capture the origin story, the "why" behind [COMPANY NAME], and the non-negotiable principles that existed from day one. Key question: "What behavior would you fire someone for even if they were your top performer?" - Employee focus groups: Conduct [NUMBER: 4-6] sessions with cross-functional, cross-level groups of [SIZE: 6-8] employees each. Prompt: "Tell me a story about a time you were proud to work here — and a time you were frustrated." - Customer/partner perception: How do external stakeholders describe working with [COMPANY NAME]? What adjectives repeat? - Behavioral observation: Spend time observing how decisions actually get made, how conflict is resolved, how success is celebrated, and how failure is handled. The real culture lives in these moments, not in mission statements. - Anti-patterns: Identify what [COMPANY NAME] is explicitly NOT. "We are not a family" or "We don't value consensus over speed" — these boundary statements are as important as positive values. ### Values Framework Architecture Design [NUMBER: 4-6] core values using this structure for each: **Value #1: [VALUE NAME — use plain, memorable language, not corporate jargon]** *The Principle:* One-sentence distillation of what this value means at [COMPANY NAME]. Not what it means generically — what it means HERE, in THIS industry, at THIS company stage. Example: Instead of "Integrity," say "We share bad news fast because hiding problems makes them worse." *What This Looks Like:* - In hiring: How does this value influence who we select? What interview question reveals whether a candidate embodies this value? What is the "red flag" answer? - In daily work: Give 3 specific, observable behaviors that demonstrate this value in action. Use real scenarios from [COMPANY NAME], not hypotheticals. Example: "When a customer escalation conflicts with a sprint commitment, we [SPECIFIC BEHAVIOR]." - In leadership: How do managers and executives model this value differently than individual contributors? What decisions does this value make easier? - In conflict: When this value tensions against another value (as they inevitably will), how do we resolve the tension? Which value takes precedence in which contexts? *What This Does NOT Mean:* List 2-3 common misinterpretations. This is crucial for preventing values from being weaponized. Example: "'Move fast' does not mean 'skip testing.' It means 'make decisions with 70% information rather than waiting for 95%.'" *The Test:* Define a specific, realistic scenario where living this value would be HARD — where the easy choice would be to ignore it. Example: "You discover a product bug that affects 2% of customers. Fixing it will delay the launch by a week. What do you do?" If the value does not help you answer that question, it is not a real value. **Value #2: [VALUE NAME]** [Repeat the full structure above] **Value #3: [VALUE NAME]** [Repeat the full structure above] **Value #4: [VALUE NAME]** [Repeat the full structure above] [Add Values #5 and #6 if applicable] ### Operating Principles Translate values into operational norms — the "how we work" layer: **Communication Norms:** - Default transparency level: [EVERYTHING SHARED UNLESS CLASSIFIED / NEED-TO-KNOW / DEPARTMENT-SPECIFIC] - Preferred communication channels: [WHEN TO USE SLACK vs. EMAIL vs. MEETING vs. DOCUMENT] - Meeting philosophy: [MEETING-LIGHT WITH ASYNC DEFAULT / COLLABORATIVE REAL-TIME / STRUCTURED CADENCE] - Feedback culture: [RADICAL CANDOR / STRUCTURED REVIEWS / CONTINUOUS PEER FEEDBACK] — specifically, how does [COMPANY NAME] expect people to give critical feedback? **Decision-Making Framework:** - Who makes what decisions? Define the RACI or decision authority framework: [INDIVIDUAL AUTONOMY / MANAGER APPROVAL / COMMITTEE CONSENSUS / FOUNDER DECISION] for different decision categories - Speed vs. reversibility: [COMPANY NAME]'s approach to Type 1 (irreversible, high-stakes) vs. Type 2 (reversible, lower-stakes) decisions - Disagreement protocol: How does [COMPANY NAME] handle genuine disagreement? [DISAGREE AND COMMIT / ESCALATE TO TIE-BREAKER / DATA WINS / SENIOR LEADER DECIDES] **Work-Life Philosophy:** - Hours expectation: Be explicit — "We expect [HOURS] hours of focused work. Nights and weekends are your own except in true emergencies, which we define as [DEFINITION]." - Availability norms: Core collaboration hours of [TIMES] in [TIMEZONE]. Outside those hours, response is not expected within [HOURS]. - Sustainability commitment: "We would rather have 48 weeks of sustainable performance than 40 weeks of heroics followed by burnout." **Failure & Learning:** - Blameless post-mortem culture: How [COMPANY NAME] handles mistakes — [DESCRIBE THE ACTUAL PROCESS] - Acceptable risk tolerance: "We expect [PERCENTAGE]% of experiments to fail. If everything succeeds, we are not taking enough risk." - Growth mindset in practice: How the organization supports learning from failure without enabling repeated negligence ### Culture Deck Narrative Structure Organize the final deck in this sequence: 1. **Origin Story** (1-2 slides): Why [COMPANY NAME] exists and the problem that made founders angry enough to build a company 2. **Mission & Vision** (1 slide): Where we are going and why it matters 3. **Who We Are** (1-2 slides): The honest description of the type of people who thrive here — and who do not 4. **Our Values** (1 slide per value): Using the framework above 5. **How We Work** (2-3 slides): Operating principles, communication, decision-making 6. **What We Offer** (1-2 slides): Compensation philosophy, benefits, growth opportunities 7. **What We Expect** (1 slide): The reciprocal commitment — high performance, ownership, honesty 8. **The Hard Parts** (1 slide): Honest acknowledgment of what is challenging about working at [COMPANY NAME] — fast pace, ambiguity, resource constraints, etc. This builds credibility for everything else in the deck. ### Maintenance & Evolution - Annual review: Revisit values with the full team annually — are they still true? Are new values emerging? - New hire integration: How the culture deck is used in onboarding — not just presented but discussed, questioned, and tested - Values-in-action recognition: Monthly spotlight of employees who exemplified a value in a meaningful way - Accountability: How leadership holds itself accountable when the organization's behavior diverges from stated values
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Replace these placeholders with your own content before using the prompt.
[COMPANY NAME][COMPANY SIZE][INDUSTRY][YEAR][SPECIFIC BEHAVIOR][VALUE NAME][HOURS][DEFINITION][TIMES][TIMEZONE][DESCRIBE THE ACTUAL PROCESS][PERCENTAGE]