Our CEO talks about the importance of cognitive diversity, continuous improvements (personal and professional) and how it impacts the SnapShyft culture.
Why is culture important to your company?
I believe a culture of success begins with self awareness and deep engagement, as well as communication, collaboration, and accountability. For starters, we’ve codified our transparent stance in how we view and operate, on behalf of and for, both the users (workers) and the businesses (customers) on our platform through Community Guidelines which are front and center and public. This creates ownership and longevity of culture, beyond the SNAPSHYFT team, for the entire platform ecosystem. Because culture is dynamic rather than static, each day we create culture by what we think, what we say, and what we do. So we adhere to these guidelines as the baseline. They govern all of us, including our internal team. And it all boils down to this: Be a good human.
What is your most creative culture initiative?
I think creating a culture of continuous improvement is essential. Always be improving. Which includes life outside of work. We begin our meetings with each individual sharing something they improved upon on a personal level or within the confines of their work environment, as well as sharing a specific problem or issue they are facing. This allows for collective celebration of big and small victories, and also opens the door for collaboration on problems. By creating time for the team to share together about something they are facing (again personal or work related) without forcing a solution right away can produce different outcomes.
How does culture fit into your talent recruitment and retention efforts?
We tend to look outside our industry sector for potential talent regardless of gender, age, ethnicity or to a certain extent location. The goal is to identify people that might elevate the team by introducing new ideas that’ve been cultivated from different fields, as well as work and life experiences. Of course the ability to deliver on objectives and key results (OKR’s) is fundamental, but it’s definitely not a replacement for culture. We actually look for cognitive diversity, in other words, differences in how people process information – how they think. This is an essential ingredient for proliferating a culture of innovation. And the ability to leverage diversity in background, experiences, and culture is a strong driver of innovation and improves the prospects for global success. By deploying different modes of thinking, cognitively diverse teams can solve complex problems at a faster clip versus teams of people that approach problems in the same fashion. What challenges need to be solved dictates what capabilities, experiences and backgrounds the team must possess to generate potential new solutions.
Our industry faces some pretty complex challenges, at least on the surface, so as a team we look for opportunities to collaborate or partner with people, groups, and companies to explore new methods that might prove to be impactful. The ability to solve complex problems strengthens our cumulative cognitive diversity and allows companies to create and survive disruptive innovation.
Interested in joining our team?
