Ten years in, we have learned that a studio’s culture is not a set of values on a wall. It is the small things the team does every week, without being asked.
Here are a few of ours. None of them are clever. All of them have survived busy months, quiet months and one pandemic.
The Friday review
Every Friday at four, everything we made that week goes on the wall — finished or not. Ten minutes per project, no slides, no apologies. It is the single most useful hour of our week.
Lunch at one table
We eat together, at the long table, most days. It sounds trivial. It is where half of our best ideas and most of our problem-solving happens.
Rituals are compressed decisions
A ritual saves a team from deciding the same thing over and over again. When to share work, how to give feedback, when to stop. That frees up attention for the work itself.
We are what we repeatedly do.
Will Durant
If you are starting a studio, don’t start with values. Start with three habits, and keep them for a year.
The line about rituals being “compressed decisions” is going straight onto our studio wall. Do you keep the Friday review even when a deadline is looming?
Especially then. It is the one hour where we see everything side by side, and it usually saves us a day later in the week.