webable culture code
TRANSCRIPT
WHY DOES WEBABLE EXIST?
Ten years from now, will you remember the emails, the meetings or your marketing budgets and targets? Guess not. But we bet you will remember how all this made you feel today: excitement, anxiety, glory, pride! WebAble exists to empower brand experiences with simple technologies.
Our mission is to simplify technology to create WebAbulous brand experiences that drive results. We believe in creative strategies which are backed by data; content which is not only brilliant, but also effective; and most importantly measuring impact of work to maximize return on investment.
OUR PRINCIPLES
Simplification We believe less is more. We make things simple to use, not just simple to look at. Collaboration We love to co-create. Our approach to work is to work with you, rather than for you. Integration We align digital with other channels to ensure cross-platform consistency in branding.
Data-driven We simplify an amazing array of user data to implement what works best for your audience. End-user centric We put your end-users first and create a fabulous brand experience for them. Permanent beta We are open to new ideas and experiments. We learn rigorously and teach religiously.
WebAble’s culture evolves and aspires to help us remain true to our purpose of existence
Culture code is a work in progress, you complete this document as WebAble’s culture evolves
WHAT’S CULTURE TO US?
• Culture is WebAble’s foundation to build a lasting company for generations to come. It is beyond technology, individuals and business landscape
• Culture is not limited to what we write within our walls and policy documents, but any behavior, practices and skills that are rewarded in the organization
• Culture is what we value in our coworkers
Why Culture?
Paychecks and perks are important, but that is not why you come to work every morning.
Security and recognition keep us alive, but passion and creativity are worth dying for.
“Culture is to recruiting as product is to marketing.” - Hubspot
"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the people to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea." ‐ Antoine De Saint‐Exupery
“Let’s make the company we always dreamed of. Let’s create a company that will be a great place to be from.” ‐ Netflix
This document partly represents who we are and partly reminds us who we aspire to become…
WEBABLE’S CULTURE CODE
• Learn rigorously
• Teach religiously
• See self improvement as a habit
• Hire “A” players
• Discipline creativity
• Obsess over quality
• Seek clarity
• Be passionate
• Be courageous
• Lead with context, not control
• Respect and show gratitude
• Default to transparency
LEARN RIGOROUSLY
• You learn rapidly and eagerly from blogs, books, coworkers, clients and competitors
• You learn with a mission everyday
• You interpret, share and verify through open discussions, research and collaboration
• You listen to and consider feedback
• You seek to understand WebAble’s and our clients’ business, strategy, technology and environment
“If you stop learning, you stop creating history and become history.” - Vadim Kotelnikov
TEACH RELIGIOUSLY
• You teach your coworkers, clients, leads and potential employees
• You share your knowledge, insights and thoughts through our blog and social media
• You practice what you preach
• You contribute to other teams with your expertise and help them learn your trade
“The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.” - Mark van Doren
SEE SELF IMPROVEMENT AS A HABIT
• You are conscious of your current level of productivity and know that if you’re not becoming better at what you do everyday, then you need to change things
• You have a higher expectation of yourself than WebAble does of you
• You generate ideas for and execute personal development activities with and for your team. You make it a habit.
• You are comfortable about stepping out of your comfort zone and learn from mistakes
• You don’t make the same mistakes thrice
"Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." - George Bernard Shaw
HIRE “A” PLAYERS • You hire “A” players because they are self motivated, driven and
seek challenge; you can learn from them and entrust them with difficult tasks
• You incentivize people rather than control them
• You hire for the company and recommend people to visit us given the answers to these questions are “YES”
– Would you like to work with him/her?
– Will you learn from him/her?
– Can this person embrace our culture?
“Mediocre colleagues or unchallenging work is what kills progress of a person’s skills.” - Reed Hastings & Mark Randolph
DISCIPLINE CREATIVITY
• You develop and stick to a system, allowing for structured free thinking, creative processes and innovative work within the framework
• You allow yourself specific time, space, context, resources and systems to get creative religiously. You make it a habit
• You build highly developed systems with freedom and responsibility, thus, embedding creativity and innovation at the core of your work
“Creativity is our business, we have to build it into our systems” - Ovick Alam
OBSESS OVER QUALITY
• Quality is defined as work that makes you and your team proud
• You triple check every line of code, copy, alignment, color scheme and tone before shipping your work
• You don’t ship your work until you’re proud of it, you always ask “Am I proud of this work?”
• You know quality is more important than meeting deadlines, but excellence is shipping work that makes you proud; within the given deadline and resource constraints
“10 years from now, no one will remember the numbers, they will remember how your work made them feel”. – Ovick Alam
SEEK CLARITY
• You are biased towards clarity. You double-check for urgency, importance, assumptions and tone
• You over-communicate, repeating things more times than you would intuitively
• You rephrase, ask, contextualize, point assumptions, define terms and specify deliverables; even though it’s obvious
• You write what you understood and ask for feedback to verify it
“Seeking Clarity is seeking connection with the universe. To connect is to understand; to be clear is to be enlightened.” – Annie Zalezsak
BE PASSIONATE
• You teach yourself to love your job
• You care intensely about company’s success and plan company’s roadmap to excellence
• You celebrate wins and work hard to earn it
• You are never out when you are down
• You define your own success and pat yourself on your back when you do great work
“It’s not just duty, it’s passion with purpose” – Amit Richard
BE COURAGEOUS
• You speak up even though it’s controversial
• You challenge authority, respectfully and reasonably
• You make hard decisions and take smart risks without paranoia
• You question actions inconsistent to our values and propose solutions to complex problems
"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.“ – Winston Churchill
LEAD WITH CONTEXT, NOT CONTROL
• You explain and embrace strategy, objectives, assumptions, transparency and facts
• You avoid imposing decisions, unnecessary approvals, committees and processes; you focus on results
• You don’t blame and try to understand the context in which an event occurred
• You use control when you are dealing with emergencies or amateur/unskilled people
“The best managers figure out how to get great outcomes by setting the appropriate context, rather than by trying to control their people” - Reed Hastings & Mark Randolph
RESPECT AND SHOW GRATITUDE
• You respect your colleagues, clients and business acquaintances regardless of their age, gender, experience, religion and values
• You acknowledge and appreciate the open source software, photos, and learning materials which helps us everyday
• You respect work of art
“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” - William Arthur Ward
DEFAULT TO TRANSPARENCY
• You know company’s revenue, cost structure, investments and policies and you are open about your goals, targets and projects
• You keep your project team members in the loop for all communications during your projects
• You are transparent about performance reviews, bonuses, and KPIs
• Yet, you respect company’s confidentiality policies with external stakeholders
“A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity.” - Dalai Lama
This document was inspired by Netflix, Hubspot and Buffer’s culture and all the books we read
ABOUT WEBABLE
WebAble is a digital creative agency delivering ‘WebAbulous’ brand experiences. Based in Bangladesh, with 18 digital marketing technologists, WebAble aims to simplify digital interactions for a select pool of ambitious clients. WebAble’s clientele includes Kaspersky, Aarong, Dell, Bay Developments, Rahimafrooz, Bangladesh Brand Forum, British American Tobacco, Bitdefender, Akhoni.com and other reputed organizations. WebAble’s 360° digital marketing capabilities include Strategy & Analytics, Design, Development, Social Media Marketing, Digital Advertising and Interactive Campaigns.
PHILOSOPHY
Ten years from now, will you remember the emails, the meetings or your marketing budgets and targets? Guess not. But we bet you will remember how all this made you feel today: excitement, anxiety, glory, pride! We understand that delivering a fabulous experience to your audience makes you feel great. At WebAble, we simplify technology to help you create ‘WebAbulous’ brand experiences worth remembering 10 years from now. We believe in creative strategies which are backed by data; content which is not only brilliant, but also effective; and most importantly measuring impact of work to maximize return on investment.
