MGW #10: “Get S#!t done. Have fun.” with BitTitan’s Culture Team

GUESTS: Darci Lee - Director of Talent and Culture and Kate Butcher - Manager of Culture from BitTitan

 

https://www.bittitan.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/darcilee/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-butcher-47262a3/

 

Stay active to keep your energy up.

 

Find great people. Onboard them well.

A common thread in our conversations on Mighty Good Work. “It starts at the top. Culture is established and reinforced by leadership.

 

Find your core values at the beginning.

 

“Get shit done. Have fun.” Cut to the chase.

 

If you don’t have integrity, you’re not going to be here.

 

“We used to tout flat management and limited process… With 200 people, now, we have to have some management, and we have to have some procedures… The right procedures.”

 

Procedures must be streamlined.

 

Guidelines are more effective than limiting procedures.

No-one wants to go see HR. That’s why we have talent and culture. “People come to us to get our guidance about how to have fun.”

 

We’re in a new business model and a new environment. We move so quickly, you have to be who you are. It’s so liberating.

 

Celebrate failure. “Yay! I failed.” Failure is not an end, it’s an inflection point. A time of learning and change.

 

We’re not tied to a ship date. We’re not tied to a product launch.

We “dog food” our products here before we got to market.

 

We tell our engineers that you can just try stuff. Not all your work has to go to market. That’s part of creating an innovative culture.

 

We’re willing to put something out into the market -- and if it’s not right, pull it back. That’s something that’s true throughout the company. It’s external -- and internal as well. Policies are tried, and adjusted, and changed whole-cloth.

 

People need time-off. Mental health is served by a change of venue, a relief from pressure. Your people work better when they’ve had a break to reset.

“A big part of our job is, how can we help people destress and get out of the office?”

 

Policies have long been in place in corporate culture to try to create the trailing result of performance and results. When you enlist and inspire people to accomplish goals -- when you give them your trust, faith, and feedback -- you’ll be amazed at their motivation and drive.

 

We invest in coaching for our people because they want to do good work -- and they will if they have the tools.

 

Work-life balance is a fool’s errand. That’s a false dichotomy. Work is a part of life. Live a balanced life.

 

People at BitTitan know they need to bring their full-self to work.

 

Notice whether your people seek guidance from one another. Do people seek coaching, advice, help from HR, from their peers, from their managers? If not, how can you create a company culture in which people make the most of the resources available to them?

 

Make sure in recruiting that what candidates see is what they’ll get when they come on board. Bait and switch is a recipe for losing people to resentment and mistrust.

 

Your people need someone to talk to who isn’t their direct colleague, and who isn’t their line-manager.

 

People we hire are willing to do the work.

 

We provide a kind of “concierge service” to make things easy for people. The work is hard. Being able to do the work should be easy. We orient people as well as we can, and give them the tools they need to do the job.

 

We have reverse engineered some of what we do from the folks out there who were already winning best place to work awards. That’s how we learn what people truly want in our sector.

 

Look for the subtle cues that people aren’t being entirely themselves, and instead of ignoring those signs, probe into that -- their changes -- with kindness and care. We want people in the right place at the right time.

 

How do you plan for succession? The most important thing is to hire the right people. People who have passion, integrity, and a sense of impeccability.

 

Fun is a more effective motivator than fear or compensation. Not forced fun… Levity. Everybody has a different definition of fun.

 

The names of things -- job titles, initiative names, etc -- carry information. Stuffy names lead to stuffy attitudes about and receptions of those things.

 

ID high potential employees. Empower them to select their picks as well. Form a team of those folks to develop their leadership -- by giving them real leadership work to do, and autonomy.

 

We’re people first, and workers second. If you don’t care for the person -- yourself included -- then the worker isn’t going to be at their best.

 

Introversion is not the same thing as social anxiety.

 

At the end of the day, we need to treat people as individuals.

 

QUIET: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking

By Susan Cain

BitTitan is HIRING! Getting up to 400 employees this year -- doubling in size. If you’re looking for a great place to work, get in touch with Darci and Kate.