The power of music for company culture

Company culture has always been a defining part of agencies. Often (maybe too often) that’s been equated with free beverages, parties, and perks; but for some agencies, culture goes far beyond those. For some of the greats like my alma mater Fallon or WK, their culture is defined by their belief system, their respect for individuals, and the way they approach work and the work overall. Regardless of how you define culture, one thing has become true over the past few years: as we’ve moved to more hybrid working environments — or in some cases —- fully remote, the process of building, maintaining, and feeding your culture has become more challenging.

At PB&, music is paramount in culture-building. And it’s taught me a lot.

Ella Fitzgerald famously and rightly said music brings people closer together. Early on in COVID, we used music to further our culture, building weekly playlists on Fridays. To date, we’ve amassed over 100 playlists across a range of genres, topics, and moods. While this activity was a way of activating our core values of collaboration and creativity, our Friday Playlists have spotlighted other important parts of our culture.

Connection. Yes, the entire idea of Friday Playlists stemmed from our belief in collaboration. But collaboration is different from connection. Our team has gotten to know each other better playlist after playlist. Our Friday Playlists have instigated conversations, questions, debates, and many laughs. People have found shared interests in artists or themes that they may not have otherwise uncovered. Some of the ‘elders’ have showcased surprising music tastes (90s rap challenge, anyone?). We’ve learned some of our younger talents are old souls (cue many Beatles hits). It has offered an easy point of connection for new team members and getting to know them better. We’ve been able to continue to learn about each other as people, not just co-workers even if we’re not together all the time.

Caring. Our playlists have been ways to demonstrate empathy, celebration, and sorrow around both world and personal events. We’ve dedicated playlists to employee marriages, unfortunate family deaths, and birthdays. But we’ve also used playlists to stand with women, people of color, and against violence. All of those situations have ignited conversations with new perspectives, raw emotions, and greater understanding. It underscores our value of caring for each other and the world around us to its core.

Commitment. Developing 100+ weeks of playlist ideas may seem fun and easy, but it takes commitment. The original idea started as we experienced some short-term business lulls during the immediate onset of the pandemic — making it easier to brainstorm and build. But as many agency people will attest, when you’re busy — your brand often falls to the bottom of the priority list. We’ve made a commitment to not let that happen to these. And it’s not easy. It’s more challenging to develop interesting and fresh playlist themes. But that too has presented opportunities for connection and creativity. And it’s forced us to take some time out each week to breathe, be creative around something that’s not client related and commit to building our culture.

Our Friday Playlists are a way of writing and fueling the story of our culture. And that’s an amazing story to celebrate. But as a leader, there’s a greater benefit. I’ve learned more about my team. I’ve learned what they love and what they don’t. It’s helped me see how they view the world and allowed me the opportunity to peek inside their personal, not just professional, lives. As a leader, that’s what I want. I want to know our people. Because people are what has made -and will continue to define- our culture.

Music reminds me of that. Every week.

Tune in.