Moving On Up: Business Culture

“People react to fear, not love — they don’t teach that in Sunday school, but it’s true.”

— Richard Nixon

So, if you want to run a top-notch money management firm, do you scare people or hug them? When we review investment firm cultures, that’s one of the big factors for evaluation: Whether a firm operates, as we call it, above or below the line. And while the perception seems to follow Nixon in the belief that successful firms operate below the line, we’ve found that not only do both strategies work, but above the line culture is on the rise as an indicator of firm success.

Definitions
Above the line behavior is characterized by an attitude of curiosity and openness, while below the line behavior is defensive and closed. The former emphasizes learning, and is a trust-based culture, while the latter accentuates being correct and is fear-based.

Above the line cultures:

• Choose curiosity over defensiveness
• Choose taking responsibility over blaming others
• Choose playfulness and fun over taking themselves too seriously
• Demonstrate trust in one another
• Are empowered and creative
• Exhibit high energy
• Are highly engaged in their work
• Demonstrate candor or openness

Below the line cultures:

• Have a serious life-or-death attitude
• Follow intimidating leaders, getting results by coercion or threats
• Tend to gossip
• React with defensiveness
• Point the finger, blame
• Are fear-based
• Use a victim mentality
• Display guarded behavior (“let me shut my door while we talk”)
• Employ an entitlement attitude

The distinction between these two cultures often turns into a discussion of “tough minded, bottom-line operators” versus “touchy-feely,” “Kumbaya-singing hippies.” This distinction is misleading. Operating above the line has virtually nothing to do with “touchy-feely” behavior. In fact, one of the benefits of operating above the line is that it reduces the amount of emotion in the workplace.

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