Values-based Leadership: Working Naked
Culmination of 20 years of growth and experience from a junior software development engineer up to COO and later Direction of Engineering for an entire site, I have a strong belief that the core of building a great team and delivering above expectations is one thing: values.
During my 12.5 years of working with a bootstrapped software product company where we started as a small remote-first team and over time grew to 100, we defined our core company values and we never compromised on them.
As a continuation of my tenure after getting acquired by a $1B company, during the next 7.5 years, our entire team maintained the high standards, continued delivering above expectations and kept growing. We never once compromised on our, now team-based values.
We hired based on values match. We mentored based on values. We aligned all our work to our values. We promoted based on values. We worked to improve employee performance based on values. And when tough calls needed to be made, we always made them aligned with our values.
Most importantly many of us have already lived by or have started living by those same values. Wherever I may end up in the future, I will continue living by these, now personal, values.
These are our values of 20 years that were coined by our original company founder and I:
"Working naked"
Everyone thinks
Intelligent, intellectual curious, logical, and systematic
We are all knowledge workers. Our primary tool is our brain and the power of our thought drives our actions and produces results. Don’t look to “bosses” to think for you; think for yourself; think outside of the box to achieve the best results. Think critically, objectively and with full information before you answer, act or deliver. Lack of thinking blinds us to obvious problems. Critical thought allows us to bake elegance and simplicity into everything we do.
Everyone leads
Proactive, assertive, principled, and confident
We are all leaders of the company, of our team, of ourselves and of our tasks. Proactively identify problems and solve them. Don’t ask questions but make recommendations. Perform duties with minimal supervision. Don’t just worry about issues or ignore them, but express your concern through direct action. Ensure you are aligned with goals of the company and your team at all times and your actions promote tangible and measurable progress towards those goals.
Everyone grows
Intellectual curious, ambitious, energetic, and motivated
Professional development is a cornerstone to our success. Constantly work to increase your knowledge, skills and efficiency. Don’t wait to be told to learn or grow; make it a daily habit. Don’t seek to learn by asking questions. Become an expert in your competency and share with others; add value to our processes and organization via actionable, well researched, and informed recommendations.
Everyone serves
Proactive, informed, constructive, and focused
Recognize that empathy and a desire to serve are the foundations for a stellar customer experience. Proactively engage your customers to seek their feedback, take personal ownership of their issues and dedicate yourself to making sure it is resolved. Treat everyone as a customer, internal or external, and make responsiveness part of your personal brand. Build effective working relationships with a focus on being positive, informative, actionable, and helpful. Prioritize team success over personal achievement.
Everyone shares
Outgoing, communicative, engaging, enthusiastic, and helpful
Communicate widely and effectively to the team, customers and community; educate your customers, peers and product owners. Volunteer self-criticism for failures proactively and be thankful for feedback, positive or negative. Mentor, advise and help others as they seek to grow and develop. Project value beyond your personal contribution by empowering others with your knowledge and experience.
Everyone strives
Productive, focused, driven, and motivated
Focus on results. Expend the effort required to meet deadlines under pressure or at least go down with a fight; use time efficiently and demonstrate strong and consistent productivity; prioritize effectively to goals aligned with stakeholders; identify risks early and work to overcome roadblocks vs making excuses. Single task with a focus on daily deliverables, completed thoroughly to a high level of quality. Set expectations realistically and expend the effort required to meet them.
Why "Working naked"?
Back in the first decade of the 21st century working remote-first and with a team scattered over 4 continents was uncommon to say the least.
Working from home, a coffee shop, a beach, etc. provided a lot of freedom but also required a lot of self-discipline as we needed to deliver results. Cooperating with colleagues from multiple time zones required good organizational skills especially considering we only had one hour of overlap in some cases.
This freedom allowed us to work in our pajamas if we desired so, or as we said colloquially, to "work naked".
We had multiple situations over the years:
- One of the more adventurous colleagues (we were both based in Europe) called me one day from a beach in Thailand and asked me to call our consulate as he would like to cross the border into Cambodia for some exploring (for real, this was not inspired by Apocalypse Now); before I could get an answer back, he informed me that he has
illegallysuccessfully crossed the border into Cambodia and will be working from there for a couple of days - During a remote debugging session, I was on a call with another dev engineer and he stopped working abruptly; as I was worried I called him again to see if everything is fine: apparently work priorities had to be changed as his wife called him to slice some onions for the lunch
- On a random day I asked a colleague if he is ok as he sounded a bit anxious; he said he was experiencing a Groundhog Day loop between the bed and the home office desk and began fearing to go outside as real people are out there 😕
These are just a few representative Working naked situations to showcase the freedoms we enjoyed over the years. 😉
