Values that inspire us: Why is a defined culture essential?
When Martín Frascaroli created Aivo in 2012, it was defined by a series of values that represented the business and the few employees that were working at the time. We’ve embraced those values for many years and they were our guideline for recruiting, training and defining accepted attitudes (and unaccepted ones).
We started this journey 7 years ago and we learned that the father of management, Peter Drucker, was right: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
But why is it essential to have a defined culture?
There’s one simple reason: It has an impact on the company’s growth and offers a significant potential competitive advantage. A distinctive work culture is extremely important to any business success.
Designing an appropriate culture also influences the creation of strong and productive work teams. A study by Gallup has proven that defining a culture that attracts talented people can increase a company income by 33%. On the other hand, Linkedln and Imperative affirm that employees who have a purpose in their work “experience levels of job performance 64% higher” than those who don’t. Moreover, the chances of them being promoted to leadership positions are 50% higher.
Finally, and this is a key point, according to Smith magazine, from Canada Queen’s University, clear and articulated culture translates into happier customers. Organizations with committed staff have 15% more productivity and, therefore, 30% higher customer satisfaction levels.
Aivo’s heart lies in its values
The values that we built when the company was born have been strong and guided us towards success. However, time has gone by and our culture values must adapt to the present of the company. The product has changed, we have added many talents and even world, technology and the way we communicate have evolved. That is why, for the first time, we have decided to update them considering they must be practical and aspirational: they should challenge us but also be something that we can identify with and implement in our daily actions and decisions.
“Today, with more than 90 colleagues, we know that having a vision and a clear strategy is important, but having a culture with which we can identify ourselves with is imperative.”
Daniela Sargiotto, Aivo’s Chief of Staff.
These are the main values that inspire Aivo’s employees’ lives.
People don’t buy what we do, they buy the reason why we do it. Giving people their time back is the most important reason why we work every day.
Our mantra is SFTC: Solve For The Customer. Satisfying our customers is not enough for us, we want to fascinate them. That’s why we must WOW them at every point of contact. Moreover, we love companies that want to make progress. Helping them succeed is one of our priorities. How do we do that? By transforming the way they attract, fascinate and relate to their own customers.
We believe that simplicity is a competitive advantage. There is no better way to keep it simple than designing and experimenting first. We are willing to try new things and take risks. We don’t care about making mistakes, but we do care about repeating them.
Amazing people aren’t fond of mediocre goals. Since we always aim to achieve the best results, decisions have to be based on perception and information. You cannot improve what is not measured.
This is our secret recipe:
How do we recognize an Aivor? Curiosity drives them to always seek personal improvement. Due to their humility, they don’t hesitate to listen first and then, listen more. They aren’t afraid of being wrong because we are human and thus, we are not perfect.
The Aivo logic is simple: life is short; therefore, it must be satisfying and fun. Since work is a large part of our lives, it has to share the same attributes.
Originally published at aivo.co on March 6, 2019.