The Culture ofDisruption

This document is about Disruptor Beam’s culture. It’s what works for us. But if you think it can help you, please feel free to take whatever you need. This deck is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/

Our vision:

To be the most fan-centric game company in the world.

Our mission:To create the world's most authentic, engaging games for you and your friends, set in the worlds you already love.

The best teams are those that are bound by a consistent

culture.

We’re a software company.

Culture is the software that helps us be an awesome

team.

Lots of companies list out a set of values like being ethical, honest,

passionate, customer-focused, etc. Most of these are so overused or obvious that

they ought to be universal to almost every company.

Instead, we’re going to focus on the values that are special for us.

Three core values of a Disruptor:

1. Authenticity2. Constant

Improvement3. Effectiveness

However, cultural values are just words unless they are put into action.

This presentation also illustrates a few concrete manifestations of our culture

like our unlimited time-off policy, lack of non-competes, our universal sharing of

objectives and results, and even how we assess potential hires.

Authenticity

“Often misconstrued, authenticity is not about being an open book, revealing every detail of yourself without rhyme or reason. It is simply the act of openly and courageously seeing what needs to be seen, saying what needs to be said, doing what needs to be done, and becoming that which you are intent on being.”

- Scott Edmund Miller

In the last few years, the word transparency has become a business buzzword. We believe in transparency, but we don’t think it’s enough…

Authenticity is transparency on steroids.

It isn’t just about being willing to hold our actions to the light of evidence—it’s also a willingness to always ask whether what we’re being transparent about is what really matters.

A good question to always be asking:“Is that what really matters?”

You can apply this question to help prioritize how to spend time, whether a particular metric is valuable, or whether a product is heading the right way.

“When we rely on vanity metrics, a funny thing happens. When the numbers go up, I've personally witnessed everyone in the company naturally attributing that rise to whatever they were working on at the time. That's not too bad, except for this correlate: when the numbers go down, we invariably blame someone else. Over time, this allows each person in the company to live in their own private reality. As these realities diverge, it becomes increasingly difficult for teams to reach consensus on what to do next.”

Eric RiesLean Startup Dude

Authenticity is the antidote to a certain problem:

Customers can tell when something is inauthentic. Although we sometimes make mistakes, customers are more forgiving when they know we have their interests at heart.

Authentic companies build authentic products.

Great companies don’t need (or want) non-compete agreements.

None of our employees sign non-compete agreements because we believe that great companies are built by team members with an authentic passion for working together on interesting problems—not by trying to prevent them from working elsewhere.

We don’t build products unless we would want our friends to play them.

Some companies build things they’d like to use themselves; others because they think there’s something needed in a market. For us, we like to think that we’re creating games that our friends would enjoy.

Constant Improvement

カイゼン

カイゼン"I do the same thing over and over, improving bit by bit. There is always a yearning to achieve more. I'll continue to climb, trying to reach the top, but no one knows where the top is.”

– Sushi Master Jiro Ono, from Jiro Dreams of Sushi

Game development is a craft. You get better at a craft through a willingness to learn along with lots of practice.

In agile software development, iteration is a way to constantly improve products by releasing more frequent versions and paying attention to the metrics that matter.

We’re committed to constantly improving every aspect of our business through iteration; not just our software... Customer service, development, hiring, design practices, deals—everything.

Fear is the Mind-Killer.*

Failure—as long as it isn’t the same type of failure over and over–is a normal part of business.

Constant Improvement helps us learn from our mistakes.

*Ancient Bene Gesserit saying.

Ancora Imparo. (Still, I learn.) — MichelangeloA commitment to constant improvement means that you’re highly adaptable and willing to learn. You’re

always trying to find ways to get better at your craft, you listen to those around you, and you’re naturally curious.

Effective

Disruptors are also effective. By effective, we mean that we focus on results. The results that really matter.

Flickr Image by Mark Sadowski

We don’t track attendance or time in the office.

If you are sick, please stay home and get better; if you need a vacation, please take the time you need.

Flickr Image by Paul Bica

Flickr Image by Mark Sadowski

Objectives and Key Results: everyone at Disruptor Beam, from the CEO to the newest hire, records their current quarterly goals and historic effectiveness in a shared Web document that every employee has access to. At our office, company-wide metrics and financial results are there for everyone to see.

How we Hire

Everyone in the company participates in hiring decisions.

The most important part of the hiring process is trying to figure

out if someone is a fit for the Disruptor culture.

Culture Fit

Skills

Skills are important, especially if they are the kind that take a long time to develop, but we usually aren’t concerned about perfect overlap to a job’s specification.

The most important inherent talents are general problem solving, innate intelligence, the ability to take a player’s perspective, adaptability and ability to learn new skills.

“Culture fit” is fundamental to any of our hires. No matter how skilled and talented someone is, they won’t be hired unless we feel they’re the right fit for our values.

Talents

Hierarchy of Importance in Hiring Decisions

Why all this really matters…

We create experiences that fire the imagination, connect people with each other in new ways, and let them feel things they wouldn’t otherwise feel…

That’s pretty awesome.

Our company is an engine for innovation.

It lets us come together and invent things we could never do on our own.

Our culture is a strategic advantage.

The more our culture help us innovate

the more we grow

the more valuable we are

the more we get to keep innovating

Tip of the Hat to:

The HubSpot Culture CodeNetflix Culture DeckZappos Family Core ValuesValve Employee ManualGilmore & Pine: Authenticity: What Customers Really WantGoogle People OperationsFlickr Images released via Creative Commons Licenses