The 5 Behaviours we Follow as a Startup and Why
Getting named as one of the LinkedIn Top Startups in Canada was surprisingly awesome. Our clients, our employees, and even strangers celebrated our spot on the list of 25. We celebrated like startups do: by going for tacos and beer.
As the celebration & good feels of recognition wound down, I started to think about what behaviours had led to whatever success we’ve enjoyed to date, and how to keep the momentum going—for myself, for the team, and for our clients.
In today’s world, you have to look ahead even while you’re reflecting. So here are a few behaviours I’m thinking about for our future as a company and culture. I’d love your thoughts, as well as any builds or behaviours you are thinking about for your own business, culture, and career.
● Stay Entrepreneurial by ‘wearing our hearts on our sleeve’. We say it all the time: “it’s not business, it’s personal.” The entrepreneurs and startups we admire most all live & breathe the passion, purpose, and belief in their mission. As a startup, we ignored cliches like “never work with friends or family” and “don’t mix business with pleasure.” Startups are a lot of work, but what’s the point if you don't work with people you love and have fun with?
● Continue obsessing about our clients and get “under the hood” of their businesses. We need to constantly bring value to our clients. It’s our oxygen. We need to not only know their brand and products, but also how their business is operationalized. For example, for TELUS, we sent our team to work in their call centres and retail stores to fully appreciate what the real world end-to-end experience is like. This allows us to incorporate executional and customer insight into our idea creation.
● Energy Management. Being energized for the first few years is easy- it’s ‘new’. The secret is keeping that initial mojo and sustaining it as your startup “grows up.” This year, we introduced a program called ‘Fit-Fam’: a fitness initiative designed to keep people moving in new ways. Next on the horizon, we will implement a sleep policy to do away with the unsustainable culture of all-nighters.
● Continue putting our ‘money where our mouth is’.Invest in startups, ideas, people, and causes that matter. We started Behaviour six years ago determined to help our clients make a difference in the world; we seek to do the same internally, and later this year we’ll launch our exciting grassroots community program, “The Lemonade Stand,” that will donate all its proceeds to local children’s charities.
● Keep investing in habitually successful, wacky, huge-hearted team members. Harder Working Ideas are our product; the people who invent them are our competitive advantage. Never has this been more apparent than now. The Top 25 honour from LinkedIn would not have been possible without the Behaviour family—the five principles above helped drive the initiative we've launched to thank them, which you can see for yourself in the short video below.
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