Generative Culture at Datavant

A Blueprint for Success

Datavant is revolutionizing its approach to team dynamics within its Technology department by building a generative culture deeply embedded in every aspect of its operations. Generative cultures — those high in trust and collaboration and low in blame — have been shown to drive more shareholder value and foster happier, healthier teams. At Datavant, we achieve this by promoting autonomy at the individual level and removing barriers so that teams can innovate swiftly.

Datavant is committed to securing, making accessible, and utilizing the world’s health data. By focusing on fostering an inclusive culture, ensuring transparency, and empowering our team, Datavant aims to not only enhance our organizational health but also secure our long-term competitiveness and create enduring value.

A comprehensive study by Gallup found that highly engaged teams show 21% greater profitability, underscoring the link between employee engagement — a key aspect of generative cultures — and financial performance. Research published in the Harvard Business Review highlights how positive team cultures contribute to employee well-being, significantly reducing burnout rates and improving overall job satisfaction.

Core Elements of Datavant’s Generative Culture

• Psychological Safety and Risk-Taking: Datavant is cultivating a safe environment that encourages team members to take risks and learn from failures, thereby promoting an inclusive culture of inquiry and growth. For instance, engineers are encouraged to identify gaps and present them as investment opportunities. This often leads to the formation of new pods tasked with addressing these gaps or even the establishment of new organizational OKRs.
• Alignment and Transparency: Every team at Datavant operates with a clear understanding of their objectives and their contributions to the broader success of the company. The decision-making process is transparent, fostering a high level of alignment across the organization. Consequently, pods independently create and own their OKRs and revisit them quarterly to ensure they are delivering maximum value to the business.
• Empowerment and Autonomy: Individuals and teams at Datavant have the freedom to select their projects and approaches, fostering a strong sense of ownership and responsibility for the organization’s success. We facilitate this by encouraging engineers to identify gaps and then utilizing our internal mobility process to match the best engineers with the most challenging problems.
• Remote-First Communication: Datavant prioritizes asynchronous communication to support a flexible and inclusive work environment that accommodates different continents and time zones. While virtual meetings foster community, we also depend on engineers to write concise papers that document ideas, process changes, and technological solutions. These papers are openly shared across the Technology organization, reinforcing our belief that our best ideas are built together.

How We’re Making Our Generative Culture a Reality

At Datavant, we’re committed to deliberately nurturing our culture through the following strategies:

• Clear Growth Paths: We implement a rigorous performance management process that clearly outlines expectations at all levels and defines growth trajectories. Managers and employees meet multiple times a year to review these paths.
• End-to-End Ownership: We empower our teams with complete ownership of their products, fostering a sense of responsibility and initiative.
• Continuous Learning: Datavant is dedicated to the continuous personal and professional development of our team members. We provide access to the latest technologies, learning paths, and tools. Managers actively facilitate rapid growth by exposing individuals to new initiatives, tasks, and teams.
• Enhanced Communication: We maintain open communication channels and conduct blameless retrospectives to learn collaboratively, ensuring safety and transparency in all our activities.
• Measuring our success: We view every Datavanter as an owner of the company, deeply invested in Datavant’s success. Our open policy on sharing team charters, roadmaps, and OKR achievements ensures clarity and transparency. We believe that understanding these elements and tracking our progress against them enhances a sense of belonging and collective achievement.

Conclusion

At Datavant, our commitment to cultivating a generative culture is a core component of our strategy and a defining aspect of our identity. By integrating trust, collaboration, and empowerment into our operations, we’re not only advancing technological innovation but also enhancing our organizational health. The positive effects on team engagement and financial performance are clear, affirming the global research that links a thriving workplace culture with increased profitability and employee well-being. As we move forward, Datavant remains dedicated to creating an environment where every team member is empowered to contribute to our mission of harnessing the world’s health data. This approach not only shapes the future of Datavant, but also establishes a new standard of excellence across the tech industry.

By Angie Zhou

About the author

Angie Zhou has a background in leadership development and is currently a Talent Acquisition Manager at Datavant. Connect with Angie via LinkedIn.

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