Mood is the new culture.
Spreading the good word with Arne Lang-Ree, Founder & CDO at Spanner Product Development
I caught up with Arne Lang-Ree, Founder & CDO at Spanner, recently. Arne leads the charge in crafting standout consumer products from the heart of Silicon Valley. His success lies at the intersection of design and business; balancing innovation against timelines and capital. I wholeheartedly subscribe to this approach in my own creative business endeavors—success doesn’t happen from a design, it can only happen when you actually ship a product.
Another ingredient in Arne’s success story is his approach to culture. I have never quite heard culture described as mood and it really resonated with me. Like many, my team is remote, flung across the world, so office culture isn’t quite a thing. But mood is something I can really easily attach to. It’s handy because it can easily transcend time zones and home offices. Here’s what Arne has to say about it:
“Mood is like the home for the stories that we live, if that makes sense. Mood affects the toolbox that you have available to you. So if you're not in the right mood, you’re not even going to see if there are possibilities that you can take. We need to create a mood, which is the foundation of culture, that encourages creativity, encourages curiosity, wonder, playfulness, fun—all those nice things. That's where imagination and creativity really flourish because you're having fun. If you think about it the other way around: self-consciousness, apathy, arrogance, contempt, those are like creativity killers. You know, if you think you're the smartest person in the room and you've got all the answers, you're not going to be creative.”
At work, I consider myself the keeper of the company mood. It’s a responsibility I take seriously. I credit joy and fun with the success that we’ve had and I do my very best to spread that mood around my remote team. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t bad days, but I try my very best to protect the joy. Pass it on!
🚨 Exciting news—my podcast, Best Day Ever, is now streaming on Spotify. Check it out for the full interview here. See ya over there!