APPrise Mobile: Lessons from Change

By Doug Pierce, COO

At the end of 2017 I joined a small mobile communications technology company called APPrise Mobile. The company had been around for about six years but had spun out of another firm with which it was still sharing physical office space. Poised for growth and ready to move into its own office, there was a clear need to simultaneously evolve an existing culture and essentially develop a new one. 

Almost any organization at any stage of growth possesses a combination of existing positive attributes and either missing or not-so-positive attributes. In our case, we had some strong individuals, a good product, very good clients, and a fairly well-established drive for making clients successful – as evidenced by both client feedback and high renewals. At the same time, we didn’t have a strong independent identity or culture, were not communicating regularly or effectively across teams, and had unclear structures and processes.

While we had a clear point-in-time impetus to impart cultural change, it should be the job of any leader at any time to understand and magnify existing positives, and identify and start behaving differently where change is needed. 

Here are some steps we took and lessons learned from the year that followed.

Physical Space

Early in the year we moved into a new office. Having previously been in a shared office, this was our opportunity to define our own personality and vibe. In our case, we designed the space to support the regular collaboration that happens between our engineering and client success teams; We made sure there was a combination of loud and quiet areas including a lounge to relax in; We decorated the office to celebrate our work and clients; And we adopted operating rhythms to match the space including a weekly Monday breakfast meeting in the open area to kick off each week. Physical space matters a lot in both supporting current needs and signaling what’s important.

Values

Soon thereafter we defined and communicated company values. We thought it was important to be able to articulate how we intend to behave among current and growing staff, and to hold each other accountable to these principles. We believed it was also important to have a combination of what Patrick Lencioni calls Core (attributes which are already established and positively describe the organization today) and Aspirational (attributes the team wants to strive for, while making sure they aren’t so out-of-reach as to lack belief). More importantly, we knew that values must be attributes which leadership actually believe in and can embody on a daily basis. After rolling these objectives together and establishing values, we created a peer-driven recognition program to regularly celebrate performance based on stated values. And of course, we also tied them back into our physical space.

Investments in People

 One of our values is “People Matter,” which means in part that we recognize and respect the other human beings we get to work with each day, take people into account in decision-making and communications, and provide the tools and environment for people to thrive and grow. Throughout the year we made several intentional investments (though not just monetary) in people – including a structure to provide better performance feedback, an initial recognition program, more consistent team communications, improved hardware/software tools, improved compensation and benefits, new unlimited vacation, employee stock options, and more. We did a lot of hiring over the year, including more than 60 percent of the now-current team. These moves are both logical and necessary to attract and retain great talent, but also a core cultural tenant that is written into our values. 

Feedback and Measurement

Late in the year, we conducted an employee feedback survey to measure how we’re doing quantitatively. 

The good news: scores and feedback were very high for living our values in general, four out of our five value points specifically, and understanding our vision and direction. Scores were also quite high on tools, people, communications, and office environment – areas in which we made conscious investments.

The bad news: We identified pretty clearly that we have room to grow in the areas of “Take Ownership” (one of our stated values) and related, a “Culture of Accountability.” After evaluating these areas, we understand our shortcomings to be at least in part a combination of not making expectations clear in certain areas and not holding each other accountable for internal dependencies. Perhaps in adding people and making a lot of changes, a lack of clarity and follow through became an unintended sacrifice.

So, we conducted a team exercise at our end-of-year company offsite, in which we broke into groups to diagram tangible inter-team deliverables and identify how we can both take ownership as individuals as well as hold each other accountable (both individuals and managers). We adopted and illustrated an “internal client” model which particularly resonates with this group because we are well established as client-focused externally. As we go into 2019, this has become our primary theme to focus on, recognize against, and measure our improvement. 

We are far from perfect or “done” with the above initiatives. Even the positives I describe have definite areas for continued improvement. But we came a long way in a year.

Some takeaways:

● When evolving a current culture, be explicit about what is good and what needs to change. It is possible to add new behaviors and rhythms to an existing culture.

● Initiatives need to support each other. In our case, our office, values, behaviors, investments, and measurement were tightly coupled. Don’t expect things to have an impact unless you are doing several things in concert.

● Not surprisingly, what gets focus will (hopefully!) show measurable results. But be aware of what else might get sacrificed. Usually something will.

● When you measure things – and you should – be open to the feedback, ready to pivot, and ready to take action.