Throughout October we explored and celebrated Ambition and Initiative, our penultimate company value to be in the spotlight. Hopefully, everybody here can now spell initiative, but as well as that we learnt much more throughout the month. Here’s our summary of the month’s activities…
Training and Games
Inspired by Brian Chesky of Airbnb and his ‘11-Star Experience’ framework, we conducted a thought experiment to encourage ambition and show the potential effects of thinking (really) big.
If you’re not familiar with this theory you can have a listen to him discuss it here. In summary, the message is “In order to scale, you have to first do things that don’t scale at all”. Designing the extremes and visualising the 11-star experience helps find the ‘sweet spot’ and makes it feel achievable in comparison to the 10 and 11-stars.
In Airbnb’s example, they came up with the below:
In our thought experiment we brainstormed an 11-star experience of Naimuri and in particular our time-booking system. The experiment allowed us to think ambitiously and amongst other things, time machines, VR stand-ups and toasters were discussed. We also considered the barriers to taking the initiative and putting our ideas into action and what can be done to break these down.
Podcast
We recorded a two-part podcast on the theme of Ambition and Initiative. Part one reflected on changes that we have made as a result of ambitious and proactive suggestions brought forward by a number of different people here at Naimuri. Part two discusses how some particularly ambitious projects have given us a stronger reputation. One example of us shooting for the moon and achieving something great was the award winning cloud solution we recently delivered to an HMG client. Despite the challenges we faced on this project we continued to aim high and achieved the previously unthinkable, building upon our reputation for delivery.
Value of the Month Award
For October, we received the most nominations we have ever had for a value of the month award. The winner, Louis F. received four much deserved nominations for his ambitious nature and his constant enthusiasm to solve problems not only in work, but in his own time. Congratulations Louis!
What We Learned
We have a lot to be proud of as both ambition and initiative are found in abundance here at Naimuri. This has enabled us to achieve some fantastic things and will hopefully continue to do so into the future. We have many people who are verbal with their ambition and readily come forward with new ideas and initiatives, as well as those who are maybe not so vocal. Our aim for the future is to figure out how to encourage everyone at Naimuri to be able to come forward with their thoughts and suggestions, so that all voices are heard and made the most of.
During November, we’ll be focussing on our final company value: Courage, so keep a look out for updates on what we’re getting up to.
