Three keys to building a culture of global growth

It is often said that Culture eats Strategy for breakfast .?

In my experience, that’s true. Your people are the ones executing the strategy. It’s particularly true when a business shifts focus as Pexip did towards the end of last year when we announced that we’re re-imagining video for industries such as government , healthcare and finance - building human interaction into digital workflows. We’re also renewing our focus on ‘critical meetings’ for large enterprise and government customers where issues of security and privacy are paramount.?

The potential of culture

The potential of video stretches far beyond traditional video conferencing. To re-imagine the future of the video economy, we’re also encouraging Pexipers to think differently. To develop new ideas that go into unexplored territory. To fail fast and learn faster .

Nurturing a good culture among your team is a competitive advantage that will grow your business in the right direction over time. If your team feels strong, responsible, and supported... if they feel like they belong and believe in their mission… if they are focused on being a little bit better every day... then you will find that culture and strategy will work together, rather than against each other.?

With a strong team, you will not only be able to execute your existing strategy, but also iterate it quickly based on customer needs and market developments. That can only be done well when you’re all moving together.

Freedom

The first value I’m going to talk about that enables a good working environment is freedom . To me, this means empowering my team to do what they believe in. I learned a lot about this from Jan Chr. Opsahl, my former Chairman at TANDBERG.?

Whether the company consists of six, six hundred or six hundred thousand people who are hungry to make the world just a little bit better than it was the day before, they need to have the freedom to act, the freedom to speak up, the freedom to choose what’s right.?

When you’re hiring, you have to ensure that you’re hiring people who have that hunger to make the world better, people who will make good choices, people who will raise their hands and ask for help if they mess up. And then you give those people freedom to go and do the work they need to do to make your mission a reality.?

At Pexip, we like to say: if you’re hired, go change the world. We’ll help you do it. Let’s do it together. Our people have all embraced that feeling - but more than that, they put it into practice every day.?

Responsibility

When you give people freedom, trust that they’ll use it the right way. This brings me to the next key point: with freedom comes responsibility .?

Employees must feel like – or even better, be - shareholders in your company. When team members feel as though there is no difference between them and the board of directors, or them and the company’s investors and shareholders, they make better decisions about the company’s future and their own actions. They know they are directly influencing the strategy and decisions, and they own that.?

With freedom comes responsibility. Both of these are grounded in trust, in self-motivation and self-leadership, and taking action in the right direction.?

Belonging

I mentioned trust. Building a tribe of people who trust each other, who feel included, who come together to learn from each other - who feel like they belong - is critical to culture.?

People want to feel like they belong. As Jim Collins says, you have to find the right people for the bus. But then you also have to build the right bus for those people. That’s what building a culture of belonging is about. When people feel supported and safe, like they’re part of something valuable, like they are trusted and they can trust those around them, they are much more likely to jump out of bed in the morning, and go home feeling fulfilled in the evening.?

I want to hire people who want to be in the room where it happens, and I want to give those people the best experiences to work together.?

Global growth and success

This is how we have built Pexip from Day 1. You’ll notice that our company values echo what I’ve written here - or perhaps what I’ve written echoes our values. This reflection is intentional. I’m proud of our Pexip team and the work we do together every day.

• Professional & Fun - We are committed to our partners and customers. We are passionate and fun to work with. We strive for excellence.
• No Bullshit - We say it as it is. We do what needs to be done. We stand for honesty and integrity.
• Freedom & Responsibility - We encourage initiative and innovation. We are all leaders. We act like owners.
• One Team - We make each other better. We respect, support and care for each other.

At the beginning of last year, we were 200 people. Then we doubled to 400. We’re going to be close to 600 by the end of this year.?

Every single new person we bring on board, we do something like six to ten meetings to make sure we know them and they know us across a variety of moods, times of day and topics. We don’t do this because we want to make people jump through hoops. What we want is to truly understand the people who might join our team, but mostly for them to really get to know Pexip being 100% sure that this is the family they want to join.?

The right people for the bus, and the right bus for the people. By promoting freedom, responsibility and belonging among your team, you can make sure that your culture becomes a competitive advantage that grows your business in the right direction – every day and anywhere around the world.?