A Note on Company Culture

"In the long run, culture wins!"

As the team increases in size, culture is starting to matter more and more.

No matter how much we talk about culture, culture is not 'talked about', culture is happening and evolving every day.

Essentially, the goal of the Team-GPT leadership team is to nurture a culture of transparency, fairness, respect, and lightning fast speed.

With people leaving the company, you will be asking yourself- what went wrong? If you can't figure it out, our leadership (especially myself) have done a bad job explaining! If you feel this way, do reach out to me. I always have time for explaining reasoning around crucial decisions.

To put it in the simplest terms:

?? Team-GPT is governed by principles

(this idea is taken from the Ray Dalio book 'Principles')

These principles are usually unspoken but mutually agreed. They are coming from the characters of the people on the team!!! Especially the first ones.

We've made an effort to make them explicit. During 'Team-GPT Summer Brain Camp' we tried to document those (see below).

We are trying to build the following culture:

I. Values

1. Transparency + trust -> transparency in a hybrid company like ours means that you should write in Slack channels. Personally, I'm trying to be as transparent as possible. I have less free time than you (and anyone else in the company), yet I find the time to update my coworkers on my work. When there is no visibility this leads to lack of trust.
2. Dedication -> We are trying to do something special here. Everyone on the team needs to be 100% dedicated, otherwise there are better suited projects available elsewhere. Team-GPT is not paying the highest salaries, not having the best perks, and is definitely not the chillest place to work.
3. Meaning / legacy -> Team-GPT is about the FUTURE OF WORK. It is trying to be one of the most exciting projects ever and this brings a lot of 'baggage' with it. To do something as meaningful, sacrifices of all sorts need to be made.
4. Integrity / Humanity / Respect -> Respect your colleagues and be genuinely a good person. This doesn't mean to be always nice or to never have conflicts. It means to respect the opinions of others and do the right thing.
5. Ownership -> don't lean on your manager. Own whatever you are doing. It's up to you to get it done.
6. Fun / play ->? Have fun while working
7. Curiosity -> You want to try something? Try it!! Try new tools, investigate new ideas, explore uncharted waters.
8. Build great stuff / deliver value -> We hate mediocrity.
9. Fairness / meritocracy -> Whoever delivers more value, will be rewarded better.
10. Dependability / Collaboration -> Collaborate, be dependable, and trust your colleagues. Compromise more often.

II. Speed

1. Do it faster -> Time is against us and we need to move faster and faster. Moving fast often is about changing focus quickly, switching tasks, not completing something you've worked hard on, and adapting to the new situation on the market. This is the #1 reason why we can beat Microsoft. The moment we start moving slowly, we are doomed.
2. Prioritize -> Being fast is about doing a few things but the right ones. P1 tasks should be done first. P2 should be done after. P3 should never be reached. On average, you should never reach the bottom 20% of the tasks you thought you'd complete, while planning.
3. Pick your battles -> You can't fight for everything all the time. This is slow, energy consuming, annoying for everyone, and ineffective. It's ok to have a strong opinion about something but not about everything.
4. Results -> Deliver results.
5. Adaptability / flexibility -> Stay open-minded. Compromise.
6. Do it and beg for forgiveness -> sometimes being fast is about just doing it without asking. If you've done an incredible job, no forgiveness will be needed.

III. Think big

Full stop.

In practice, the points from above are our culture if and only if:

• misaligned behaviors are not tolerated

• culturally aligned behaviors are rewarded

Building the right team is probably the hardest and most important task of all.

But don't stress about it! The role of any leadership team is to ensure the best possible outcome for everyone!

Resources on culture

• Culture is the Behavior You Reward and Punish
• Culture decks, values examples, employee handbooks and articles on Culture
• Programming Your Culture
• Run This Diagnostic to Thoughtfully Build (and Evaluate) Your Startup’s Culture

Some good examples

• Team-GPT Employee Handbook
• Netflix Culture presentation
• The 37signals Employee Handbook