Pleasantries are awesome. For social settings. WE are trying to do something great. Build something amazing. Make a dent in the universe. Forgive me if I skip the pleasantries.
You are here amongst a group of A-players. What is an A player? They’re the ones who get picked first. Not in sports, but in intelligence. You are among the stars of our community. You are smart and you are talented and you probably have a pretty awesome attitude. That’s the reason you’re here. If you think we’ve made a mistake, you should leave. In fact, we’ll give you a $2,500 bonus for leaving in the first 30 days if you’re not the right fit.
Alright, now that that is out of the way, lets get to the meat of the matter: You don’t have a boss. Why? Because you’re too smart to have a boss. You do as you please, but it turns out you want to make a difference. That’s why you actually try. You are always looking to improve, not just yourself, but your team. You’re always looking for better ways to do the things that make a difference and there’s always a better way. That’s why you’re hungry for knowledge. That’s why you’re at Axosoft.
While you don’t have a boss, you do have a role. You were hired for a reason: to kick ass! Maybe as a developer (to build amazing products) or to help spread the word (as a marketer) or to close that deal (in sales), but irrespective of the role, the goal should always be clear: we’re here to do something amazing and yeh, if we do a great job, we’ll pay the bills and then some. But you could pay the bills anywhere. The fact that you work at Axosoft means that you could work at any number of companies and probably make more money – at least in the short term. If short term financial gain is your motivation, we can refer you to a few companies and give you a nice severance. But if making a dent in the universe is your motivation, then you’re in the right place.
To be sure, working at Axosoft is not easy. It’s challenging and demanding. You’re going to get into arguments and heated discussions and sometimes you’ll feel alone. You might be a lone voice of reason without authority. That’s the way things work when you are amongst peers. Not everyone is on the same wavelength and it’s your job to speak up, to convey the essence of your expertise. Everyone wants to be lead by you and everyone is waiting for you to speak up and lead. If you know the subject, it’s your call and you need to step up.
It turns out that leading is exhausting work. You actually need to know what you’re doing and you have to be willing to take risk and you have to accept the probability of being wrong. Leading is stressful. So sometimes, you want others to lead and you’re perfectly fine with that. That’s what makes you a perfect fit at Axosoft. You know when to lead and when to follow.
We are not trying to build just another company. Axosoft is different. You knew it in the interview. You knew it when you accepted the position. There’s something special about a place where you are the boss. We’re not trying to do the same things in the same way as everyone else. We want to make a difference and that’s why we added you to the team. You are different and that’s awesome!
So there is this thing that every successful company needs: strategy. Now imagine trying to build a strategy in a company of 30, 50, 100 or 500 peers. How do you do it? The answer is that you need representation from each part of the business and the ideal representation is those with the most knowledge of the business who also have the willingness and history of stepping up. A sampling of the company’s most knowledgeable and most experienced, selected by peers help shape Axosoft’s strategy.
Being a part of the strategy team does not make you any more special or give you any more privilige than anyone else in the company. There are no corner offices or reserved parking spots at Axosoft. It simply gives you the responsibility of helping direct the company’s future by representing your department and team’s concerns. It forces you to step outside the day to day activities and think about the future…the future we want to build.
As the company grows and faces new challenges, things will change. You were picked to be a part of Axosoft because of your intelligence and your ability to quickly adapt to change. Change is how we survive. Change is how we continually get better. Change is how we crush our competition.
Lets get one thing straight: we are a competitive bunch! In business, like sports, there are winners and there are losers. Survival is dependent on winning. And we are competing in a worldwide arena. That means our competitors can come from anywhere with bigger budgets, larger staff, lower costs and in some cases, all of the above. But there’s always a way to win, and our collective survival as a company is dependent on finding a way to win.
Historically, we have won by innovating. Axosoft’s product line is like no other. We don’t copy the competition. We don’t outsource our key competencies. We do embrace good ideas, no matter where they come from, and we look for different ways to mary a collection of good ideas to solve problems in new ways.
But innovation is not limited to product development. Innovation can be in any part of the company, from the way we attract new talent, to the way each workstation is designed and even to the way we deliver happiness to our fellow team members. In a global market where our competitors can be bigger and better financed than us, we have to out-innovate them in ways they are not even thinking about.
Welcome to Axosoft. There, we got the pleasantaries out of the way too. Now lets do something amazing together! Go. Seriously. Get to work!
Hamid Shojaee