Gill Reindl

Why Is Culture So Important?

A great company culture is something everyone in an organization will recognize, yet it’s hard to describe in a nutshell. So much of company culture is hidden beneath the surface and isn’t tangible—it’s behaviors you encounter and values you feel, like trust and belonging.

Positive, cohesive cultures help glue an organization together and provide a springboard for its people and their talents to thrive; they foster creativity and productivity and keep talented individuals fired up with a sense of pride in the organization and their contribution to it.

On the other hand, some cultures can be toxic, demoralizing places, sapping the lifeblood from their people and hemorrhaging their best talent—not a great plan when business is tight and competition for talent is narrow. Some consider the current landscape as a war for talent.

Getting Started

I started working with GigaOm as a contractor just over two years ago. The company is a fully remote tech analyst firm, operating with a global mix of highly skilled employees and contractor practitioners. Growing fast and establishing a strong reputation in its sector, it had great products and was ready to adopt a little more organizational formality.

But first, GigaOm needed to build the cultural foundations on which to support its ambitions plans. Our team set out on a course to define the underpinning values that everyone in the organization could stand behind and then create an ongoing program to embed and maintain them. Importantly, GigaOm leadership wanted to ensure that its values were not merely named and then placed on a metaphorical shelf; instead, its values would be the beacons guiding the growing business in all aspects of its work.

It’s been a rare privilege to work with the GigaOm team as it builds its company culture from the ground up. In the past, my work in this area has involved working with companies to course-correct and adapt already-embedded cultures—how exciting it’s been to encounter a fresh canvas, the energy of a startup, the cross-organizational enthusiasm, and a fully invested leadership team! A promising set of ingredients.

GigaOm’s Values

Our team chose to use the Culture Design Canvas framework to support our work (covered in more detail below under “How We Settled on Our Culture”). Out of those efforts came GigaOm’s six values shown in the wheel below (Figure 1).

Figure 1. GigaOm’s Values Wheel

Each value includes qualifying “I” and “we” statements, helping to give meaning and personal accountability. We’ve also created policies, work processes, and communication channels to align with these values, and we feature the “value of the month” within our weekly huddle program.

Additionally, as we’re a remote workforce, we’ve leveraged tools like Slack and our evolving intranet called Gigahub to develop social, fun aspects of the culture. Some of our favorite culture-building channels are Gigafoodies, Crazy Ideas, Fantasy Football, and GigaPets.

I don’t believe it’s true that great culture cannot be built in remote or hybrid workplaces, although I would agree it needs determined, thoughtful, and intentional effort. Sure, meetups in person always add value; however, strong and close remote culture is not impossible, it’s just different.

Creating values and establishing cultural norms is just the start—maintaining values and ensuring the company is living up to them is where the real effort comes in.

To that end, our team has just completed a second round of focus groups, gathering feedback on our progress thus far and planning next-step initiatives to strengthen areas that need work. From those convos, we know an area we want to tackle next is how to embrace and unify the contractor/employee mixed workforce.

We are immensely proud of the progress made, which, without a doubt, is fueled by the belief that the leadership team and whole organization are invested in a positive culture as a major ingredient for future success.

Nicole Saunders

When I was first considering working with GigaOm, an analyst described the company to me as an “innovative startup with a great product.” Of course, I was intrigued. A startup has many things going for it; it’s fast-paced and there are many opportunities for growth. It’s built around a small core group of dedicated individuals who are willing to wear many hats to produce something meaningful for its customers. But the startup is ideally a transient state. To maintain success, startups need to respond to growth, develop and streamline processes, and find the right balance of the right people in the right roles.

Once I came on board, it was clear that GigaOm was graduating from its startup phase into something bigger and more refined. Happily, we found that the process of “growing up” beyond startup status didn’t mean discarding the passion and enthusiasm that comes with starting something new.

Growing Pains

The growth and success of GigaOm’s products and services meant that we needed to focus on organizational transformation to bolster this success with thoughtful internal change. Several areas stood out to leadership as being places we could improve, such as defining the core values of our organization, diversifying the individuals holding leadership positions, strengthening our project management office (PMO), and solidifying our people processes.

How We Settled on Our Culture

Defining organizational culture must be purposeful. While discussing where to begin with the important task of developing our values, we agreed that these values must come from across the organization. The people who would enact the culture needed to be included in the process of defining our values. With that in mind, we scheduled a series of collaborative brainstorming sessions with volunteers across the organization to hear where we were doing well, where we could improve, and what our colleagues valued in each other.

What stood out to me the most when we held these sessions was the enthusiasm that each person brought with them. They had great ideas for the culture they wanted to see, and they pointed out subtle areas of previously unspoken understanding. For example, many employees had already developed strong connections within a fully remote work environment, which was no small feat. Individuals were happy and proud to help unearth the ways they connected with their coworkers and upheld an overall sense of pride in their work.

With the input from these sessions, we were able to summarize common themes and settle upon six values that we knew we could represent and embody on a daily basis in everything we do. To keep our values front of mind, we have focused on one value each month so that we can lean into them, contemplate their impact, and find new ways to represent them.

Thoughtful Hiring

Additionally, we knew it was important to be thoughtful in our hiring process and bring on people who could help take GigaOm to the next level. Beyond someone having the necessary experience, we needed individuals who were excited about an evolving role in a growing organization, people who would go beyond the scope of their job description to take on challenges that needed new solutions. Through our interviews, we selected candidates who matched with the values, energy, and direction of GigaOm. We were greatly rewarded! These additions to our teams have fostered spectacular results in efficiency, communication, and enthusiasm.

When I reflect on the differences from when I first started at GigaOm two years ago to what the company looks like now, I see the progress that we’ve made as well as more positive change on the horizon. Truly, change is the only constant. Our improvement is reliant on our flexibility and continued sober self-assessment. We are proud of what we’ve achieved and know that the work is far from over.

Elizabeth Kittner

What would you implement if you were empowered with setting and guiding your organization’s culture, values, and norms? I invite you to think about and determine how you can impact your organization in these ways to help you and your colleagues thrive and evolve in positive ways.

It is my distinct honor to be part of the team at GigaOm that has put structure around these intangibles of culture, value, and norms, and is dedicated to cultivating them and keeping the organization accountable for living up to them. I am proud of the values we created and for putting them into a wheel format to demonstrate how each value is of equal importance.

Seek, Welcome, and Respect Diversity

The value I want to focus on today is “Seek, Welcome, and Respect Diversity.” We highlighted and celebrated this value in June to align with Juneteenth and discussions around diversity in our GigaOm community. We set the stage for a respectful discussion of differences and allowed people to feel comfortable asking questions of other people within the discussion. We celebrated the neurodiversity in our community and the ability to recognize the quieter contributions of our introverts. We asked culture questions about language, traditions, and lifestyles, and we invited external guests to participate in a Diversity in Tech Panel to garner additional perspectives from the tech industry we contribute to.

Part of my role as a culture guardian is to help create these psychologically safe environments for people to feel comfortable asking and sharing. Each time I participate in a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training or discussion, I learn from other people’s backgrounds and experiences. These opportunities highlight the importance of respect for diversity in a professional setting so we can create the best possible work environment and best version of our organization in the communities and markets we serve.

How Each Value Upholds and Strengthens the Others

Each of our values intersects with the others, which is one reason why our values are meaningful to us as individuals and as an organization.

We can take our “Seek, Welcome, and Respect Diversity” value and link it to the other five:

• Embrace Learning and Improvement: When we seek to understand others’ backgrounds and experiences, we are learning about different ways to approach a situation and can improve or refine our own approaches because we will achieve a deeper understanding of the world.
• Act with Integrity: We act with integrity when we welcome and respect diversity because we ensure honesty and fairness include all backgrounds.
• Strive for Clarity and Openness: When we seek to understand where our colleagues are coming from, we will reach more clarity and be more open to different ways of working. Welcoming diversity promotes transparency of people’s opinions and respect for those opinions.
• Pursue Excellence: When we seek diversity in our work, we pursue excellence in the way we work with each other and deliver our offerings. We can challenge the status quo and push each other to be more excellent in our thinking and decision-making.
• Empower People: People will be empowered to share their opinions and speak up when they want to contribute an idea, even if it is counter to the group or to the way a problem has been solved in the past, because they feel psychologically safe and supported.

While I’m excited to celebrate the progress we’ve made in defining our values, encouraging positive norms, and preserving our culture, I’m even more excited to see how we take our learnings from today and apply them to help us achieve a better tomorrow. Preserving and refining culture is an ongoing responsibility, and I am thrilled to be part of an organization and a team committed to this journey.

How to Get Involved with GigaOm

We’re always looking for more people to join our great team, so if you’d like to work for GigaOm, take a look at the current job listings on our careers page.

About the Authors

Gill Reindl
An organizational development consultant with 35 years experience gained across a variety of commercial sectors including senior leadership roles in UK higher education. An experienced researcher and project manager in areas of organizational culture, leadership development, the future of education and work. Gill has worked on several projects with GigaOm.

Nic Saunders
A tech industry enthusiast with a background in operations and working in the startup space, Nic has worked with GigaOm for two years in the areas of people operations and finance.

Elizabeth Kittner
A finance and accounting guru with a technology focus who has a passion for elevating individuals and building healthy cultures in the organizations she serves. Elizabeth is a member of GigaOm’s executive team and oversees finance and people operations. She is also an author and speaker in the areas of ethics, communication, and leadership.

The post Developing a Culture for Growth—Reflections from the Project Team appeared first on Gigaom.

As CPA firms experiment with ChatGPT and other AI solutions, it is important to consider the technology’s limitations—including the ethical ones.

A powerful new artificial intelligence (AI) bot, ChatGPT, is causing quite a stir in the business world, including in the accounting profession. Using a wide range of internet data, ChatGPT can help users answer questions, write articles, program code, and engage in in-depth conversations on a substantial range of topics.

What makes ChatGPT sensational to some, besides the headlines of it passing the Bar Exam, various medical exams, and MBA exams, is its ability to hold human-like conversations with users. Essentially, AI developers designed neural networks in the technology to function similarly to the human brain. Because language is full of nuances and contextual differences, earlier versions of AI programs had not achieved as much success in this area.

As powerful as this new bot is, ChatGPT (and other similar AI) does have its limitations—including ethical ones. Before we delve into the ethics of ChatGPT, let’s first look at what the bot does well, and what it does not.

STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES

Ultimately, AI programs are designed to improve efficiencies for performing basic tasks, including researching and writing. Some users are even asking ChatGPT to take on more robust forms of these tasks, including drafting emails to fire clients, crafting job descriptions, and writing company mission statements.

It is important to note that while ChatGPT can provide helpful suggestions, it is not as good at decision-making or personalizing scripts based on personality or organizational culture. An effective way to use ChatGPT and similar AI programs is to ensure a human or group of humans is reviewing the data, testing it, and implementing the results in a way that makes sense for the organization using it. For example, with job descriptions written by an AI program, at least one human should ensure the details make sense with what the organization does and does not do.

A significant reason that humans are still better at decision-making is because the neurons in our brains are autonomous, efficient, and constantly changing. ChatGPT is not an independently thinking program—despite some of its responses that lead people to believe that it is. Programs like ChatGPT have rigid neural networks and require a high amount of computing energy and electricity to learn and operate.

Another current weakness of ChatGPT is its ability to break and be manipulated. ChatGPT has consistently experienced overwhelmed servers, making it inaccessible to users. Additionally, some rogue users have been able to “jailbreak” ChatGPT’s safeguards, causing the technology to push out unethical and harmful information. While ChatGPT’s owners have been able to patch and update the AI for these jailbreaks, it has yet to be seen if they will be able to fully stop further attacks.

One way ChatGPT is working on preventing the release of inappropriate content is by asking humans to flag content for it to ban. Of course, this method brings up a number of ethical considerations. People who are utilitarians would argue that this method is ethical because the end justifies the means—the masses are not subject to bad content because only a few people are. Those who are more deontological in their ethical views would say this method is unethical because people cannot intentionally subject other people to harm, regardless of the outcome.

In terms of preventing unethical behaviors, such as users asking the program to write their papers to pass off as their own, some technology developers are creating AI to specifically combat nefarious usage with AI. One such technology is ZeroGPT, which can help people determine if content is generated from a human or from AI.

ETHICS, ACCORDING TO CHATGPT

I decided to try ChatGPT and asked the bot if it could tell me more about the ethics of AI. It did not hesitate to point out that the field of ethics in AI is concerned with the moral implications of the development and use of the technology, pointing to a range of ethical topics on bias and fairness, privacy, responsibility and accountability, job displacement, and algorithmic transparency.

I also asked how I can use ChatGPT ethically. Not surprisingly, it suggested being respectful, avoiding spreading misinformation, protecting personal information, and using ChatGPT responsibly.

The points ChatGPT made in its responses are generally known as items that need to be addressed. To its point about fairness and bias, specifically how to mitigate bias in the AI, we can focus on how to interact with ChatGPT and similar programs to not be as affected by the bias.

Importantly, we should be treating the responses from ChatGPT and other AI programs as suggestions and considerations instead of as final products. Much like how internet searches are not always accurate, we should recognize that AI is still a developing and biased technology. While we can marvel in its evolution, we should still be adding judgment to the decision-making advice and data it presents.

There is no doubt that ChatGPT is a powerful technological advancement, and the hope is that it is used mostly for ethical good. As this technology progresses, it will be important for us as CPAs to consider how we can ethically use ChatGPT and similar evolving AI programs in our work while still maintaining integrity. Understanding the developing capabilities and limitations of AI will be key to guiding our interactions with it and helping us maximize its benefits while preserving our quality and ethics.

NOTE:

This article originally appeared in Insight, the magazine of the Illinois CPA Society.

The post How Can CPAs Ethically Interact With ChatGPT? appeared first on Gigaom.