Introducing CULTŪRA: A Guidebook for Founders Building Diverse Teams
Written by Michel Fabode
I’m excited to announce the release of my first book, CULTŪRA: A Guidebook for Founders Building Diverse Teams. The journey to creating this book started during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and was born out of the wisdom of the communities that have most impacted me.
Below is an excerpt from the book.
15˚ Founders are a collection of leaders insistent on building organizations with diverse individuals to solve a particular problem. These leaders may be at the helm of organizations from small businesses to Fortune 500s, tech startups to non-profits, hospitals to schools, and everything in between. What distinguishes them is how intentional they are about building teams of people with truly diverse backgrounds and perspectives, and who are united by the organization’s mission.
Notably, though, 15˚ Founders are also distinguished by their willingness to take inventory of who they are and who they are not in order to thoughtfully construct teams that can help minimize their blind spots and execute beyond their individual capacity. Just as driving experts recommend adjusting the side mirrors by about fifteen degrees to eliminate the blind spot and expand the driver’s field of view, 15˚ Founders recognize that building organizations to solve real problems requires people fundamentally different from themselves to expand their business field of view (NHTSA 2011).
As the workforce becomes increasingly diverse, 15˚ Founders will be positioned to recruit and retain the best workers, particularly if they can intentionally design a culture for a diverse team. Harnessing the power of a passionate and diverse team requires the culture design toolkit. This toolkit can give 15˚ Founders the mechanisms for thoughtfully and intentionally crafting a culture for that team.
Without the right culture, even teams optimized for diversity give in to conformity, thereby minimizing the value of the team’s diverse perspectives and becoming its own kryptonite. Too often, 15˚ Founders do not have meaningful guidance for how to create a culture that guards against this and fosters the specific values that drive success.
This book is that guide.
