Imagine working in a 65-employee, profit sharing, high tech company where 60% of the employees are women; and the final question before hiring a woman is: “Can you kick-ass?”
Last night, I attended an event titled: Inspiring Business Cultures at the fun-oriented offices of Boulder-based SurveyGizmo. The online survey company serves 300,000 customers in 144 counties in marketing and market research.
When the company launched in 2006, by Co-founders Christian Vanek and Scott McDaniel, Christian was only 21. One of their first hires was a 15 year old computer savvy kid, who is now the second most senior employee in the company.
By 2011, their startup was ranked the 13th fastest growing software company in the U.S., and offered as a user friendly alternative to their competitor, SurveyMonkey, whose CEO is married to Facebook’s COO and Lean In author, Sheryl Sandberg.
I learned this, and a whole lot more at their World Cafe style meet-up facilitated by a woman who described her job as Culture Coach. I met people who held titles like Director of Happiness – the Director of Human Resources who formerly ran HR for a multi-campus hospital, Customer Service Heros – those involved in customer support, and the company’s Onboarding Expert, a friendly tech savvy guy named Griffin, who described the company’s marketing strategy as more focused on word of mouth and blogging survey success tips for customers, not advertising.
Employees describe their workplace as a “culture of caring,” where it’s OK to cry when times get stressful, and OK to talk through your frustrations with a manager – a sort of “talk therapy” – that gives you a chance to discover what is really bothering you and make necessary changes yourself.
It’s also OK to identify yourself with a fanciful game-based personality such as a mermaid, duchess, ranger or dragon slayer. In fact it’s even OK to say, I’d rather do my work at the office, rather than opt for work from home.
At the end of the event, when the food and beverages were put away, and someone turned off the lights, the employees headed outdoors for a game of kickball.
Alexia Parks, a United Nations virtual mentor, and CEO of AlexiaParks.com uses communication technology and the New Science of the female brain to inspire and motivate a new generation of leaders. The Alexia Parks 10 TRAITS Academy is the only science-based leadership training program in the world that is based on the New Science of the female brain.
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