This repository describes the culture we strive for at Octopus, recognising our culture is the sum product of our people, the way we behave towards each other, and the behaviours we tolerate.
It defines what we appreciate about the people we work with on a daily basis. It helps us champion each person's individual growth. It helps us hold each other accountable for upholding our cultural values. It helps us have fruitful one-on-one conversations.
It's the anchor point used through all of our hiring, feedback, promotion, and salary review cycles.
It's a living document, maintained by the very people it affects.
This document should act like a tuning fork and provide encouragement for personal growth. It is broken down into a few sections:
- Everyone defines the overall culture of Octopus and ways each person can strengthen that culture.
- Other sections build on top of these cultural norms for specific roles.
Retrospective: To look back at events that have taken place and incorporate our successes and improvements into our daily work life.
Each person at Octopus should have a regular 1:1 with other people using this statement as a retrospective tool. You are welcome to choose your mentor and how frequently you schedule your 1:1. As a rule of thumb you should do this at least monthly with a mentor who is close enough to you and the work you do to actually be helpful.
Prepare for your 1:1 by going through the parts of this statement relevant to your situation, and rate yourself at each of the defining characteristics. Your mentor will do the same thing so your 1:1 leads to fruitful conversation.
- Everyone.
- Your specific role.
- Any role you are aspiring to.
We have identified several defining characteristics about each role at Octopus, and provided some concrete behavioural examples to explain what we mean. For example:
- Example I am confident to take risks, ask questions, and offer new ideas.
- Example The people around me feel confident to take risks, ask questions, or offer new ideas.
Rate yourself at the defining characteristics level so it's not too hard to maintain over time; the examples act as a frame of reference for the rating.
If you're aiming for a promotion or a different role, rate yourself on both your current role and your desired role. Looking at the desired role will provide clarity about gaps you might need to fill or grow into. You should discuss your desire before rating with a peer or mentor, so that they can provide feedback on your goals.
Let's use simple terms for the ratings:
No brainer: "You're great at this! We don't even need to talk about it."Maturing: "Here's some suggestions, take them or leave them - it's your call."- It makes sense to record the suggestions.
Needs coaching: "This is an area you're weak in, let's work out a plan and walk this out together."- It makes sense to record the coaching plan.
Let's call special attention to clearly outstanding/exemplary behaviour:
Outstanding: You simply shine in this area like very few others. I think people deserve to know this about you.- This is more than just saying "I'm really, really good at this". It's saying that you're right up there with the best few across all of Octopus at this.
When it comes to personal growth:
- I want to get insight from someone’s real-life experiences, and from them mentoring me as I grow.
- I want ideas and opinions from someone I’ve worked with and can trust to be both candid and fair.
- I want feedback based on real-life examples rather than third hand conversations from afar.
- I want suggestions for a coaching plan that helps me grow as an individual.
- I want to talk to someone about my goals in Octopus and get help achieving those goals.
When it comes to salary review and promotion:
- I’d like to think that my growth/salary/promotion in Octopus is not at the sole discretion of a single person.
- I want my salary review to be based over time, like an ongoing conversation, that way I feel like there’s been opportunity to grow and to show and measure my growth and I don't get judged only using their recent memory.
- I want to know the salary review process is fair and open and that favouritism doesn't come into it.
- I want the salary review process to work fairly regardless which teams I belong to.
When it comes to personal growth:
- As a mentor I want to provide insights to someone I’ve been working with closely, where I’ve experienced what it’s like to face the challenges they have, helping them as they develop and mature.
- I want the process to be centred around their growth as an individual person.
- I want to understand their personal goals in Octopus and help them achieve those goals.
When it comes to salary review and promotion:
- I don't want to try and recall everything I know about someone when salary reviews come around, but I'd rather have it collected as a natural by-product of mentoring a person.
- I don't want to be the single person responsible for a person’s growth/salary/promotion in Octopus, I want it to be collaborative.
- I want decisions for a person’s growth/salary/promotion in Octopus to be based on their proven growth over time, not just a because they did the right things for one month a year.
The concept is drawn from work Michael Noonan did at Readify in 2015, but written specifically for Octopus.
In 2014 at Readify (a software consultancy) we had a very "human resources" approach to
resourcespeople. Processes were written in language nobody really understood and couldn't apply to their daily life or personal growth. We were expected to recommend or exclude people for promotion based on our best memory of their performance during the entire year, often based on third-hand information. Personal interaction and mentoring was inconsistent.After one of these experiences in 2015 I set out to reimagine the whole situation from my own point of view:
- I want to provide a simple breakdown of what I value most about the people I work with in the hope that most of us agree.
- I want this to read as a either a narrative or as a reference.
- I want to use language that promotes personal ownership.
- I want to use language people can identify with: more human than human resources.
- I want people to be inspired to grow personally just by reading through this.
- I want people to feel like this is achievable.
- I want this to be helpful for personal and team retrospectives.
- I want this to help when recommending people for hire, promotion, and recognition.
- I want people to collaborate on this as a living statement: it's maintained by the very people it affects.
We adopted the approach in Queensland first, followed quickly by all of the state branches in Readify, and has become a routine part of the fabric of the company.
This is a living document, maintained by the very people it affects. You should raise issues and pull requests. Pull requests will be accepted by a peer, once it has reached reasonable consensus among the people affected by the change.