A company’s vision is like an intricate painting; it is, after all, “the big picture.” Every decision a company makes — from the people they hire to the projects they accomplish — contributes a brush stroke to the larger image, taking it from a skeletal pencil sketch to something that can be hung proudly in a gallery. Executed correctly, a company’s vision is a piece of art. Like a painting, though, it is important to consider every detail of the creation process, and no detail is more significant than a company’s values.
If a business’s structural and strategic decisions are the brush strokes, their values are the paints. Well-chosen paint is what elevates art to perfection — would we still remember Monet’s lilies or Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” without the beautiful greens, blues and yellows that bring them to life?
Good, clear corporate values do not go unnoticed; in fact, it’s what many employees look for. In a survey done in 2020 by job site iHire, 75 percent of employees said it was “very important” that the company they work for have strong core values. When a company’s values reflect their vision, it gets every employee on the same page and encourages them to take the same steps to achieve their goals.
In the words of the great Bob Ross, “all you need to paint is a few tools, a little instruction and a vision in your mind.” Built In sat down with three Colorado tech companies to learn how they choose to paint the values for their company’s picture. AIR Communities VP of Accounting/Controller Molly Syke, Matillion CEO Matthew Scullion and Adswerve Chief Revenue Officer Scott Sullivan shared how their attention to values informs their leadership strategies and helps them achieve their company vision.
First, what are your company values, and why did you choose these values in particular?
Our company values of integrity, respect, collaboration, customer focus and performance culture were chosen with a great deal of intention. We start with integrity in everything we do — when each team member lives with integrity, we are able to treat each other and our customers with respect. This strong foundation leads to collaboration, allowing the team to focus on what matters most: our customers. When the entire company is grounded in these values, performance comes naturally.
How does your team live out your values?
Our team hosts companywide weekly stand-up meetings to go through priorities, pain points and wins. As part of these meetings we try to ensure that we are working toward a common objective and that our priorities are aligned according to those objectives. We value each team member’s well being, and strive to uncover challenges to see if there is a better way to work through them or if there is availability for someone else to step in and help. The team regularly raises their hand to help, even when everyone is busy. We not only work together but we win together.
We start with integrity in everything we do — when each team member lives with integrity, we are able to treat each other and our customers with respect.”
What is your company vision? How do your values help support that vision and set your team up to achieve its goals?
Our vision is to be the best owner and operator of apartment communities, inspired by a talented team committed to exceptional customer service, strong financial performance and outstanding corporate citizenship. Our team vision is to support the business through continuous improvement and grow intellectually, professionally and cross functionally. Despite various demands, we spent time as a team assessing each individual member’s roles and responsibilities to determine if there were tasks that could be eliminated, done more efficiently or moved to a more suitable owner. Doing so has laid the foundation to create an environment where we can cross-train each other to ensure we are continuously learning and improving our processes which will better support the business. It is vital that we challenge the way things have been done historically as a part of our continuous improvement efforts. Engaging in these discussions has brought the team closer and created an appreciation for the various pillars of our culture.
First, what are your company values, and why did you choose these values in particular?
Our values are reflected in the following statements: We are confident without arrogance. We care. We have a bias for action. We innovate and demand quality. We work with integrity. We are customer obsessed.
At Matillion, we believe our most important asset is our team. Culture is pivotal to everything we do, and we think our values reflect this. We care about our people and the communities in which they operate. Employees are encouraged to take volunteering days, which are in addition to their vacation allowance so they can give back to their communities. We have a scaffolding of support in place for issues such as mental health, with subscriptions to Headspace and fully-trained mental health first aiders making up thirty-one of our existing Matillioners.
At Matillion, we believe that no person, process or thing is ever finished — we are constantly innovating to achieve better results for our customers, because we are customer obsessed. We hold customer advisory boards, and I take time to speak to our customers on a one-to-one basis, because we know that listening to the voice of the customer and innovating is a route to success. Our mission is to “make the world’s data useful” — in order to do this, we must listen to what our customers need.
At Matillion we believe that no person, process or thing is ever finished.”
How does your team live out your values?
Just last week we held a customer advisory board — an event in which we invite our valued customers to participate in a roundtable discussion with the senior leadership team at Matillion, including the CEO. It is a platform during which they can air any asks, grievances and feedback, as well as materially contribute to the product vision for the future.
Thirty-one Matillioners have recently committed to spending their own time to become fully trained to support anyone on the team who may need support in regard to mental health. We are sponsoring the Black Tech Fest at the end of October as part of our diversity and inclusion initiative, and we host influential speakers at company events — such as Tony Nabors with understanding institutional racism, and MindGym with unconscious bias training.
What is your company vision? How do your values help support that vision and set your team up to achieve its goals?
Matillion’s vision is to make the world’s data useful, and, in doing so, to build a company of consequence the right way — with a strong culture underpinned by the values that we all believe in. By doing those things, we together make a dent in the universe bigger than any of us could do as individuals. Our values underpin this very vision.
We must be confident in order to deliver it. It’s a big problem we’re solving, and building consequential companies is rare because it’s difficult. But we mustn’t be arrogant, because that will stop us listening and learning in the way that’s required in a high-growth company doing new things.
We have to innovate because the products and processes required today will be insufficient tomorrow — and, most importantly, because each of us as Matillioners also have to continue to learn at an accelerated rate. We must do all of this with a bias for action — as we have so much to do — and in a way that is customer obsessed, since we only exist to make the lives of our customers better.
To build a business in the right way, we must do business with integrity, using a strong moral compass and treating others how we would like to be treated.
First, what are your company values, and why did you choose these values in particular?
We have built our company values around our customers, our business and most importantly our people. Ultimately, our primary goal for our people is to cultivate a happy and engaged team. In addition, we continue to support our journey towards a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace.
How does your team live out your values?
Diversity, equity and inclusion is woven throughout the fabric of our organization. As a result, our employees at Adswerve have started a task force called IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity and Equity for Adswerve). Their mission is to understand the experiences of others by supporting and fostering positive relationships to help drive better solutions. Diversity guides our innovation and connects us closer to each other and our customers. Adswervians are not all the same and that is our greatest strength. We are better together.
We have built our company values around our customers, our business and most importantly our people.”
What is your company vision? How do your values help support that vision and set your team up to achieve its goals?
Ultimately, our vision is an evolution in how we look to change our identity from a Google platform reseller to a digital marketing leader that provides services, solutions and technology to drive remarkable marketing outcomes. As mentioned previously, our pillars revolve around our customers, our business and our people.
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