I found out today how important it is to be vocal when you really believe in something.
First some background:
I believe that the reason that TokBox is successful right now is because we’ve built the right culture. Hiring in the Valley is a bitch, and if you aren’t careful, then you’ll hire anyone out of desperation. We’ve made that mistake before, and I’m sure we’ll do it again, but lately we haven’t.
What is the crux of our culture? I think TokBox as a company is focused around building an excellent product together. There is team buy-in to our vision, strategy and execution. Buy-in doesn’t mean consensus mind you, but at the very least we force ourselves to come into a room and hear each other out before anything is committed to paper.
At some points that community approach is challenged. People have a bad day or they fundamentally disagree with how something is being presented. It’s these days that challenge the culture hardest, and we recently had one of those days.
It happened; we acted on it quickly, and I think that at the very least the problem has been surfaced. There is a clear chink in the armor, and that’s not going anywhere. At the end of the day, we’re all people, and the dynamics of that come into play. But in immediately responding to the situation, and vocally championing what’s right instead of what’s easy I think we took a big, big, big step in showing that our culture is sustainable.
Good job us, and now on to the next challenge.