Paste your essay in here…The Brag Culture
THIS NEEDS TO BE CHANGED;
Entertainment, like friendship, is a fundamental human need; it changes how we feel and gives us common ground. The Brag is better entertainment at lower cost and greater scale than the world has ever seen. We want to entertain everyone, and make the world smile.
This document is about our unique employee culture.
Like all great companies, we strive to hire the best and we value integrity, excellence, respect, inclusivity, and collaboration. What is special about The Brag, though, is how much we:
encourage independent decision-making by employees
share information openly, broadly, and deliberately
are extraordinarily candid with each other
keep only our high performance people
avoid rules and micromanagement
Real Values
Many companies have value statements, but often these written values are vague and ignored. The real values of a company are shown by who gets rewarded or let go. Below are our real values, the specific behaviors and skills we care about most. The more these values sound like you, and describe people you want to work with, the more likely you will thrive at The Brag.
Judgment
You make wise decisions with The Brag’s best interests in mind
You identify root causes, and get beyond treating symptoms
You think strategically, and can articulate what you are, and are not, trying to do
You are good at using data to inform your intuition
You make decisions based on the long term, not near term
Communication
You are concise and articulate in speech and writing
You listen well and seek to understand before reacting
You maintain calm poise in stressful situations to draw out the clearest thinking
You adapt your communication style to work well with people from around the world who may not share your native language
You provide candid, helpful, timely feedback to colleagues
Curiosity
You learn rapidly and eagerly
You contribute effectively outside of your specialty
Your attention to detail has you making connections that others miss
You seek to understand our members around the world, and how best to communate with them
You seek alternate perspectives
Bravery
You say what you think, when it’s in the best interest of The Brag, even if it is uncomfortable
You make tough decisions without agonising
You take smart risks and are open to possible failure
You question actions inconsistent with our values
You are able to be vulnerable, in search of truth
You take on new projects
You thrive on change
You aren’t scared of making mistakes when trying new things
Passion
You inspire others with your thirst for excellence
You care intensely about our members and The Brag’s success
You are tenacious and optimistic
You are quietly confident and openly humble
Selflessness
You seek what is best for The Brag, rather than what is best for yourself or your group
You are open-minded in search of the best ideas
You make time to help colleagues
You share information openly and proactively
Inclusion
You collaborate effectively with people of diverse backgrounds and cultures
You nurture and embrace differing perspectives to make better decisions
You focus on talent and our values, rather than a person’s similarity to yourself
You are curious about how our different backgrounds affect us at work, rather than pretending they don’t affect us
You strive to keep The Brag diverse in every sector of the business
You recognise we all have biases, and work to grow past them
You intervene if someone else is being marginalised
Integrity
You are known for candor, authenticity, transparency, and being non-political
You only speak about fellow employees as you would to them in person
You admit mistakes freely and openly
You treat people with respect independent of their status or disagreement with you
Impact
You accomplish amazing amounts of important work
You demonstrate consistently strong performance so colleagues can rely on you
You make your colleagues better
You focus on results over process
It’s easy to write admirable values; it’s harder to live them. In describing courage we say, “You question actions inconsistent with our values.” We want everyone to help each other live the values and hold each other responsible for being role models. It is a continuous aspirational process.
A Brag Unit (think, “dream team”)
A Brag unit is one in which all of your colleagues are extraordinary at what they do and are highly effective collaborators. The value and satisfaction of being on a Brag unit is tremendous.
Our version of a great workplace is not comprised of event and dining perks. Our version of the great workplace is a Brag unit in pursuit of ambitious common goals, for which we spend heavily.
It is on such a team that you learn the most, perform your best work, improve the fastest, and have the most fun.
To have an entire company comprise the dream team (rather than just a few small groups) is challenging. Unquestionably, we have to hire well. We also have to foster collaboration, embrace a diversity of viewpoints, support information sharing, and discourage politics.
Our team members push themselves to be the best colleague possible, and they always consider their teammates when making decisions.
Given our Brag unit orientation, it is very important that managers communicate frequently with each of their team members about where they stand so surprises are rare. Also, it is safe for any employee at any time to check in with their manager by asking, “How do you feel I am contributing to The Brag? Am I an elite performer?”
Honesty is a core value of The Brag, and your manager will always be honest with you just like you should be honest with them. Everyone should always know where they stand, that’s how we thrive.
Encouraging Fuck Ups
One might assume that with dream team focus, people are afraid of making mistakes. In fact, it’s the opposite. We try all kinds of things and make plenty of mistakes as we search for improvement. You will never get in trouble for making ambitious mistakes at The Brag. If you aren’t making any ambitious mistakes, you are not being brave enough.
What do we mean by ambitious mistakes?
When you are taking on a new role, starting a new project, taking on a new task you’ve never done before or doing something unprecedented, you will definitely make mistakes.
These type of mistakes are what we call ambitious mistakes.
Consistent careless mistakes due to poor attention to detail or poor time management are symptoms of either a lack of passion for your work, or that you’re simply not at the elite high performance level required to be at The Brag.
We all make careless mistakes sometimes and you’ll never get in trouble for them, but high performers are not consistently making careless mistakes, and at The Brag we only want to work with high performers.
At The Brag, ambitious mistakes are encouraged, what have you done brand new to your career or brand new as an industry? Tell us about those mistakes you made while attempting it so the whole team can learn from your experience!
In general, freedom and rapid recovery is better than trying to prevent error. We work in the creative sector, and therefore our biggest threat over time is lack of innovation. Error prevention and strict processes may sound productive, but they prevent inventiveness.
Some processes are about increased productivity, rather than error avoidance, and these are ones we abide by. Such as scheduled meetings, and agendas.
Collaboration and Trust
At The Brag, collaboration and trust work well because your colleagues are both exceptionally skilled at what they do, and at working well with others.
In describing selflessness we say, “You make time to help colleagues. You share information openly and proactively.” We want new colleagues to feel very welcome and get all the support they need to be effective.
High performers ask for help whenever they need. And high performers also offer help whenever it is asked.
Helping each other is at the core of high performance.
No Asshole’s Allowed
On a dream team, there are no “brilliant assholes.” The cost to teamwork and enjoyment is just too high. Our view is that brilliant people are also capable of decent human interactions, and we insist upon that. When highly capable people work together in a collaborative context, they inspire each other to be more creative, more productive and ultimately more successful as a team than they could be as a collection of individuals.
Hard Work Is Not How We Reward The Braggers
Hard work is not how we measure high performers.
We are results based, not “clock watch based”. If you are having a big impact in your role and putting in very little effort, you will be rewarded with more responsibility and a pay rise.
We reward results and impact, not hard work.
Being a Bragger is not for everyone
Being on a Brag unit is not right for everyone, and that is OK.
Many people would prefer to work at companies whose orientation is more about stability, predictability, clear working hours and job structures, seniority, and working around inconsistent employee effectiveness.
The Brag unit model reinforces the idea that if you live and work by The Brag values, you will;
Always know where you stand in the team
Always be rewarded for your impact and performance
Always have job security and career progression
Thriving in ambiguity
There are companies where people walk by trash on the floor in the office, leaving it for someone else to pick it up, and there are companies where people lean down to pick up the trash they see, as they would at home. We try hard to be the latter, a company where everyone feels a sense of responsibility to do the right thing to help the company at every juncture.
Picking up the trash is the metaphor for taking care of problems, small and large, as you see them, and never thinking “that’s not my job.” We don’t have rules about picking up the real or metaphoric trash. We try to create the sense of ownership, responsibility and initiative so that this behavior comes naturally.
We trust our high performers to do what they think is best for The Brag, and will give them all the support and help they need — giving them lots of freedom, power, management support and information in support of their decisions.
In turn, this generates a sense of responsibility and self-discipline that drives us to do great work that benefits the company.
We believe that people thrive on being trusted, on freedom, and on being able to make a difference. So we foster freedom and empowerment wherever we can.
In many organisations, there is an unhealthy emphasis on process and not much freedom.
This is great for people who enjoy structure, clear KPI’s and tasks. These are the type of people who like to know what “their job is” and only focus on that.
At The Brag, we are forever changing, forever growing, forever doing new things. We often say we are building a plane while flying it, and the truth is, we will never finish building it.
This means we are always working in ambiguity, working in unstructured environments and it can be scary or confusing, but Braggers thrive in this environment.
Transparency & Trust
We are dedicated to ensuring Braggers feel like business partners not employees, and we do this by;
Ensuring they know no questions are off limits. They can ask management anything they want to know about the business. From operations, to HR to growth strategies etc.
We consistently and transparently display our monthly revenue on the screen in the office so every staff member knows how we are performing as a company
We will have quarterly reviews with every staff member so they know where they stand within the business and how they are performing at The Brag
Our sick leave policy is “take sick leave when you need it, no questions asked.” We don’t ask for medical certificates because we trust our staff to only take sick leave when they actually need either a mental health day or are genuinely sick. That’s what sick days are there for.
We don’t clock watch or care “how hard” you are working. All we care about is the impact you're having the performance of your work.
Most internal documents are available in our shared drives + slack channels and can be accessed by every team member
When you have high performing, ambitious, passionate people, they thrive under this freedom.
There are a few important exceptions to our anti-rules pro-freedom philosophy. We are strict about ethical issues and safety issues. Harassment of employees or trading on insider information are zero tolerance issues, for example.
Some information security issues, such as keeping our members’ payment information safe, have strict controls around access. Transferring large amounts of cash from our company bank accounts has strict controls. But these are edge cases.
Informed Captains
For every significant decision there is a responsible captain of the ship who makes a judgment call after sharing and digesting others’ views. We avoid committees making decisions because that would slow us down, and diffuse responsibility and accountability.
This means, company decisions are raised with the team, debated and analysed, then at the end of the meeting the Captain will make a decision.
Depending on the decision, the discussion or debate will be a select few staff member or the wider team, depending on staff availability or time sensitiveness of the decision.
If the Captain has made a decision a Bragger does not agree with, they will fully back and support the decision as they respect the process and have trust in their teammate.
Disagree Openly
If you disagree on a material issue, it is your responsibility to explain why you disagree, ideally in both discussion and in writing. The back and forth of discussion can clarify the different views, and concise writing of the core issues helps people reflect on what is the wise course, as well as making it easy to share views widely. The informed captain on that decision has the responsibility to welcome, understand, and consider your opinions, but may not agree. Once the captain makes a decision, we expect everyone to help make it as successful as possible. Later, if significant new information becomes available, it is fine to ask the captain to revisit the topic. Silent disagreement is unacceptable and unproductive.
Further to this, disagreement without the open mindness for constructive solutions is also unproductive.
Braggers are given context, not micro management
The legend of Steve Jobs was that his micromanagement made the iPhone a great product. We don’t care for this legend. Highly charismatic CEO’s who micromanage every aspect of the business may famously work sometimes, but usually it ends up in disaster.
The leader’s job at every level of The Brag is to set clear context and goals for the team so that others have the right information to make generally great decisions and achieve excellence in their KPIs and objectives.
We strive to develop good decision-making muscle everywhere in our company. We pride ourselves on how few, not how many, decisions senior management makes. If senior managers find themselves micromanagement staff, either the senior manager is not being a good leader by providing clear goals and context or the team member is not a high performer.
In the scenario where the team member is not a high performer, the senior manager will be very honest with specific feedback so that the team member can improve.
In the scenario where the senior manager is not providing enough context or clear goals, the team member will also provide this honest feedback so the senior manager can improve.
We don’t want hands-off management, though. Each leader’s role is to teach, to set context, support at every opportunity, and to be highly informed of what is happening. The only way to figure out how the context setting needs to improve is to explore a sample of all the details. But unlike the micro-manager, the goal of knowing those details is not to change certain small decisions, but to learn how to adjust context so more decisions are made well.
There are some minor exceptions to “context not control,” such as an urgent situation in which there is no time to think about proper context and principles or when a new team member hasn’t yet absorbed enough context to be confident.
We tell people not to seek to please their boss. Instead, seek to serve the business. Think about what makes The Brag tick? What audience or revenue metrics make us thrive? Serve those, not your boss.
It’s OK to disagree with your manager. It’s never OK to hide anything. It’s OK to say to your manager, “I know you disagree, but I’m going to do X because I think it is a better solution. Let me know if you want to specifically override my decision.”
What we don’t want is people guessing what their manager would do or want, and then executing on that guess.
Seeking Excellence
We are a new company, a startup. And hence, a glaring ambitious mistake we’ve made is hiring people who are not high performers or we’ve been fostering certain environments which didn't allow high performers to be high performers.
This is a work in progress for us, and it always will be. We expect every current Brager and every new Bragger to fully immerse themselves in the mission of seeking excellence in themselves and for the company.
No Bragger should want to be in environment which prevents them from having the biggest impact they can possibly have.
We do not seek to preserve our culture — we seek to improve it. Every person who joins us helps to shape and evolve the culture further. We find new ways to accomplish more together.
Every year we can feel a real difference in how much more effectively we are operating than in the past. We are learning faster than ever because we have more dedicated people with diverse perspectives trying to find better ways for our talented team to work together more cohesively, nimbly and effectively.
Summary
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