Culture and engagement: Then and now

Hi, Amanda here for think-team!

Today, we finally reach the end of our weekly OKR retreat. Everyone finished drafting their first individual OKR. While, I am excited to see how we will move forward from today, today’s progress made me reflect how I first got introduced to the topic of organizaiton culture as a culture and engagement intern at an e-commerce company. Before I become majorly involved in it, I thought introduction of culture was only significant at the beginning because occasionally during interviews, questions about culture also rises to explore whether the place or the person is the good match. Then, as I got to know new people from different departments in this e-commerce, I found that people in every workplace discuss organizational culture as this mysterious language that characterizes the ambience of the people in the company. Looking from outside perspective as an intern, I acknowledged that culture can establish solidarity, but can also be easily misinterpreted and misused.

I have mentioned in my last blog my perspective continuously grow, including about culture! In fact, I found that culture is actually not as mysteriously establish. A well-defined culture has a profound ground rules, as explained in our CEO, Tak’s blog. In theory, it is difficult because there is no one-size fit all method in applying a success story from a popular company. We mostly know how it work when we see other members actively shaping and improving the existing guidelines.

While highly performant teams and effective communication leads to a culture of ownership and impact, it does not necessarily lead to a healthy, supportive and fun culture that address well-being of the team. A healthy culture is created by reinforcing the collective success over individual accomplishments, which in turn removes internal competition. This is further supported by a right day-to-day and monthly activity which enable learning from mistakes than being penalised. As you can read from Cynthia’s blog, we evaluate our culture and system through 7 virtues: responsibility, achievement, style, clarity, variation, buddy, and contribution. https://www.su-re.co/post/reflection-of-2020-the-significance-of-a-teamwork?locale=en

Paying attention to little details makes the environment fun and friendly, which include small rituals that only su-re.co has. One of my favorite ones is the short quiz by Tak on his blog at the end of our daility meetings. The topic ranges from sustainability, visioning, climate change, OKR and so much more. We have been doing it for almost four months now, sometimes I answer it subconsciously. It excites me when my answer is not correct because then I reflect deeper on how I position myself on the topic or in su-re.co: what could I have done better? How can I improve this situation or make it better?

Thank you for reading! I am curious what rituals or activity in su-re.co or at your workplace that sparks joy ?