The Dropbox guide to building creative culture | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)
Culture shapes team happiness, belonging, productivity, innovation, and business outcomes. The Dropbox design team argues that creative culture should be built intentionally rather than left to develop by accident. Its Team Values Toolkit turns abstract beliefs into shared values, observable behaviors, reinforcing habits, and an iterative process. ## Culture as Intentional Practice - Culture is how teams act on their beliefs. - It exists at company, organizational, team, and working-group levels. - Although culture forms inevitably, intentional design helps creative teams innovate and deliver stronger work. - Dropbox developed Culture Kits to help teams make culture concrete and actionable. ## Defining Beliefs and Shared Values - Team members share stories about meaningful work experiences to uncover their individual values. - Including everyone’s perspective helps prevent culture from reflecting only dominant viewpoints or top-down directives. - The team then identifies recurring themes and combines related ideas into shared values, such as grouping “teamwork,” “partnership,” and “clear goals” under “collaboration.” - Shared values should support the team’s goals and connect with broader company values where appropriate. ## Turning Values into Behaviors - Values become useful when translated into specific actions. - Teams should discuss how their values guide: - Decision-making - Conflict and tension - Collaboration - Feedback - Day-to-day working relationships - These behaviors make cultural principles visible in actual team practices. ## Establishing Reinforcing Habits - Teams should define communication styles, norms, and processes that encourage desired behaviors. - For collaboration, this might include cross-functional practices and regular feedback. - The relationship between values, behaviors, and reinforcement creates a shared social contract. - Consistent habits determine how culture is experienced and understood by the team. ## Evaluating and Iterating - Cultural change takes time, so teams should preserve practices that work and remove those that do not. - Teams should define ways to assess whether their culture supports both people and outcomes. - Regular events, such as quarterly offsites, provide opportunities to revisit and refine the framework. - Like a product, culture should be continuously tested and improved. A healthy creative culture requires more than choosing inspiring values; teams must practice and reinforce them consistently. The Team Values Toolkit offers a structured way to build that culture collaboratively and keep adapting it over time.