Dress Appropriately

This may sound weird but I believe the way we dress says a lot about who we are. An entrepreneur daily attire speaks a lot about the culture of the company he/she wants to build.

Prior to Beveragewala, I was working with a K-12 school in Gurgaon. There were 250 odd people in the team there. Mostly every one of them used to be dressed up very formally, men wearing shirts properly tucked in, trousers, women in sarees or formal suits etc. The dressing complemented the formal culture that existed there, with everyone addressing each other as Sir or Ma'am, timings of entry and exit of the staff were very strict, every little thing was documented etc..  The management had made an effort to build this. I learnt from this that the management wanted to build a formal atmosphere in the office and was successful in doing so, which was also clearly visible in the clothing of the team there.

Similarly, the culture we build through our clothing also emanates to people outside the organization. If I know I am to meet someone from American Express, I would expect someone dressed up very neatly and formally. On the other hand, maybe someone from a startup like Facebook can be expected to be seen in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt (it's an assumption).

Hence, it becomes very important to dress up appropriately, by appropriately I mean wearing something which actually reinforces the culture of the company and unites the team together.