I started dating my wife 15 years ago. Back then, out of the many things that caught my attention when joining the environment of a new family, there was one that intrigued me for many years: the joy when washing the dishes.
At home, my siblings and I would do any kind of business to simply get away of this task. I remember even the impact of thinking about it during a meal that I had to do such a task. I was 14, my sister, 11, and my brother, 9.
At my wife’s home, they volunteered themselves to do it. I couldn’t be more surprised, I vividly remember thinking: “how on Earth can someone do that? These people are definitely weird.” This was just a small sign on how the culture was different.
After some months, I started volunteering myself. The craziest part: I did not feel any pressure to do that, it was just natural in that environment to do so, believe or not. The same task that I would fight in my place, I was doing with no pressure somewhere else. I tried to rationalize at that time with no success, I quickly let it go and did not come up with any reasonable conclusion.
Now, I can say, quoting Simon Sinek, that the culture of a place indeed plays a key role on how people behave. We are thinking of having kids and that’s one of the topics on my radar: which environment will we create for this new human being?
15 years ago, I was in the receiving end of how impactful it can be and, nowadays, I can provide a tiny bit of this same feeling to others in our work place. I’ve been onboarding new people on our team for the last 2 years and I felt the impact of newcomers noticing how we genuily care to welcome new ones and how we strive to create a culture that can make everyone flourish. Life is good.