According to Deloitte's 2016 Global Human Capital Trends report, 86% of their respondents viewed "corporate culture" as important or very important to business success. However, something seems to be out of kilter when only about 12% said they think their company is "driving the right culture" and 28% say they "understand their organisation's culture."
I personally have experienced many different types of corporate cultures across my career to date. Some were destructive and demotivating while others were nurturing and prosperous. However, over the last 5 months I have been working near a tech company that caught my attention - Ometria, a customer insights and online marketing platform for retailers. They use artificial intelligence to support brands to create a more personal relationship with their consumers. The company started as a humble tech start up back in 2013 and has exploded into a team of approximately 40 employees and counting with a recent injection of significant investor funding making a total of $11 million to accelerate the development of its customer marketing platform.
The first thing I noticed about the team was an energetic and enthusiastic vibe. They were quick to make me feel included as an honorary member of the Ometrian team (even though I have never officially worked for them). I was curious to know how such a culture was created and explore the challenges that Ivan Mazour (Co-founder & CEO) and Cat Navarro (People Director) may be facing to keep that authentic feel as the team expands.
You may be surprised to learn that Ivan's initial intention when thinking about building a brand culture back in 2013 was adopting a cult mindset (in a positive way of course...) but why?
"People in a cult can get very excited about something, and it becomes their life. They love it, and it makes them deeply happy at the same time. That ability to get people to believe in something and then collaboratively work for that single unified purpose, to spend most of their waking hours of time truly enjoying and relishing that experience is something that I felt I wanted to create, and then be part of. I didn't want to be a cult leader, that's not the point. I wanted to be part of that kind of entity, and my goal was to create something like that, something where both the goal and the environment was exceptionally positive." - Ivan Mazour
Ometria's culture deck is purposefully made up of 192 slides all with only a few words, a snippet, so it can allow people to absorb every word. This deck is a very clear and focused vision that built up what it is like to be part of this brand and what each 'Ometrian' within that is like.
When listening to Ivan there were three things important to him that stood out for me - team, respect and responsibility, values that I can relate to, it is also relevant in the responsibility of artificial intelligence debate. If you are an individual that prioritises the 'me' over 'we' attitude, Ometria is not the place for you.
"The focus of winning together was always our highest and most noticeable value. This is not an environment where people come for selfish personal reasons to talk about themselves or succeed on their own. Everyone here works towards a joint unified goal and they see that one of the outcomes is inevitably their own personal career progression and personal learning. What's great is that it is an outcome that they know will come, but that it is not what they are here to do. They are here to do something together. I also felt that it was vital that we always treat the responsibility that we are given with the respect that it deserves. In particular, for a small company to be trusted with the kind of data that we are dealing with is a privilege and I wanted to make sure that was baked into the culture of what we were creating. As we've grown though, it's become clear that our culture has evolved, and we've identified that some of the values are more important to us than others, so one of the things I'm really excited for right now is to help the culture become even clearer and spread it to even more amazing people who are joining us each week." - Ivan Mazour
Earlier this year Cat Navarro was hired by Ometria to tackle the growing complexities of this culture. Her background sits in change management; she also mentors women and business leaders at early stages of their career/businesses.
Cat highlights that one of the biggest challenges facing Ometria as it continues to grow is reminding people of those core cultural values.
"If you consider the cult metaphor further: what makes it so powerful is that everyone within can articulate what makes them special, what they believe in, and how they should act as a result of that.
That's what a company's values should be. When you're small that's easier. You're probably hiring people you know, working in the one room where you're feeding off each other. But when you get bigger, it becomes harder. There are more distractions, less reach, compromising on those values can become tempting.
What if your best seller didn't share the company's values? Do you let them go? What if someone wasn't hitting their targets but did share the values? Do you let them go?
Ultimately, your company values aren't what you write on a piece of paper. You can’t decide what you’d like your values to be. Your values are your behaviours, and your decisions.
So, the challenge isn't in deciding what those values are, but in articulating them, and bringing them to life. Everyone wants to sign up to something. As leaders, we need to present what that "something" is, and reinforce it. Every day needs meaning for staff, and every day, staff should have no doubt over how to behave, and what decisions to make.
In my experience, companies that can nail that, can achieve anything. The "anything" is just a good strategy, that any consultant can come up with. But the "nailing it" part is having a team that can execute it.” - Cat Navarro
Ivan envisions Ometria to grow into a thriving international business and has 100% belief that a 1000 employee base can be achieved. Once the business crosses water it will have a whole new set of challenges around navigating this intricate culture. Watching as an outsider over the last few months was certainly a joy. It gives me hope that leaders such as this understands the economic benefits of living out your true values.
If you are interested in applying for any job vacancies with Ometria I would recommend checking out their website.