55. What Are Community Guidelines, with Morgan Hamel

May 8

Today’s episode is the third in a series on company culture. Erica is joined by Morgan Hamel, and they focus on establishing community guidelines.

Morgan is the founder and CEO of The Garment, which exists to make ethical fashion accessible and sustainable. The Garment recently launched an online community, and Morgan has been working with Erica to ensure that the company’s values are reflected in the community and to establish appropriate guidelines for the community.

Morgan reveals how, with the help of her established company values and by surveying stakeholders, she was able to create guidelines for her burgeoning community. The stakeholders feel they truly have a “stake” in the community and, for this particular community, they are equipped to self-govern and hold one another accountable to the established guidelines.

Finally, today’s conversation gives the listener a glimpse into how Erica can support community/culture creators in a way that is welcoming, nonjudgmental, and that keeps the creator moving forward.

Are you ready to listen in? What’s Happening In This Episode

[0:02:46] Erica’s introduction of Morgan Hamel
[0:05:00] Morgan’s self-introduction
[0:07:18] Morgan explains with the community guidelines mean for The Garment
[0:09:01] The checkpoints that defined the Garment’s community guidelines
[0:12:06] Morgan was able to “create permission in a room” and thus solicit nearly a thousand in-depth survey responses
[0:14:47] Distill responses into an action plan to share the bigger vision and the mission, invite stakeholders, and pull from those responses keywords and core values and behavior statements
[0:19:34] Why it’s important to get stakeholders involved in the creation of community guidelines and how Erica was able to support Morgan through that process

A KEY CONCEPT FROM TODAY’S DISCUSSION:

When brands and people who create cultures have a place where they can ask those curious questions, that will help them move in the right direction.

QUOTES

“Company culture and any of the pieces of it -- community guidelines included -- are not things that are meant to just kind of be typed out and then you’re done with it. It is a part of action.” – Erica

“The guidelines that we have are an actual, genuine reflection of our community.” – Morgan

“[The community] doesn’t run if the people that are within the community don’t feel as though they are a part of co-creating this, if they don’t feel as though their voice is actually there.” – Erica

“It’s really important that when people are [creating community guidelines] that it is a reflection of the true diversity of the space that they have or want to create.” – Morgan

“We miss out on a huge opportunity to genuinely connect with our people and to differentiate ourselves as a company and as a brand... Community guidelines and the way we as entrepreneurs do the ‘how’ of our business is the thing that will differentiate us in this new marketplace, and especially now.” – Morgan