I recently completed 128 months at @Zoho. In light of all the posts praising the company for its $1 Billion revenue milestone, I thought I’ll write about a few deeper things that truly deserve praise. I have firsthand experience of these. 🧵 1/n
There is no documented culture, yet everyone just “gets” it. The employee onboarding process has some basic Cliff’s notes, but the culture remains strong from 300 to 12K employees mainly because managers live it. The people who understand it stay long term while others leave. 2/n
Managed redundancy is used as an operational advantage. Multiple teams work in parallel on their own approaches to the same or similar problem statement. They’re all scrappy and simple. Eventually 1-2 approaches emerge victorious and are adopted widely and scaled quickly. 3/n
Managers give feedback everyday. Sometimes it’s praise, sometimes it’s constructive criticism. Almost always, it’s polite, actionable, rational, and sincere. The annual performance appraisal meetings generally have no surprises. People know how they’re doing. 4/n
Metrics are used to catch anomalies, not manage everyday productivity. Most leaders believe that not everything can be optimized. If we do the best we possibly can for the customer each day, we will do well. That thumb rule that guides most of the work inside the company. 5/n
There are almost no corporate rituals. Most rituals are cute and contextual within each team. Some of these spread organically to other teams. Next to nothing is mandated top down. This ensures everything is meaningful and is tied to a contextual outcome. 6/n
Every task has a clear owner. Every collaborator around them can give actionable feedback. The owner decides, and they’re accountable. Collaborators may disagree but have to commit to the project and support the owner. This keeps things moving at any scale. 7/n
People genuinely care about their colleagues & the customer. If you’re sick & need time off, someone will step up to fill in for you automatically. If someone else is struggling, you’ll step up. It’s habitual & simple. No process, no compensation, nobody expects anything. 8/n
Most managers believe 95% of experiments don’t break the company. So experimentation is baked in as a habit. Teams are encouraged to rationally approach experiments, document, learn, and move on. Teams also share their learning internally, since failure isn’t stigmatized. 9/n
Every employee I know has disagreed with their manager at least once in a given month. Everyone is encouraged to have convictions and defend them. I love these debates. Many of them leave both parties enlightened. Some lead to paralysis. It’s a great trade-off overall. 10/n
Nobody cares about what degree you have, from which university, how long you’ve been in your role etc at all. Decency is a given, but credibility is earned by demonstrated impact. When the CEO is answerable to an employee, so are you. No ifs, no buts. 11/n
Data security and privacy carry topmost priority. The company is paranoid about it. The smallest of teams (even marketing!) have a security-privacy coordinator. Strictly no 3rd party cookies used. Certifications, audits, hackathons, all for security. 12/n
The company runs on its own software. From vendor experiences to employee experiences to customer experiences, everything is powered by Zoho software. I buy competing apps for personal use just to know how good/bad Zoho apps are! Employees give product feedback everyday. 13/n
The bootstrap mentality runs deep. Managers make expenditure decisions like they’re spending from their own pockets. Frugality is a habit. Employees who believe in things like "burn-and-turn" tend to leave quickly and organically. 14/n
The bootstrap mentality runs deep. Managers make expenditure decisions like they’re spending from their own pockets. Frugality is a habit. Employees who believe in things like "burn-and-turn" tend to leave quickly and organically. 14/n
Cool may be famous, but reliable is legendary. The company is allergic to cool trends and most managers actively discourage riding short term trends. We want to be around in 100 years, not be famous next week. This attitude is prevalent throughout the company. 15/n
There are many more things worth praising about Zoho. These are all top of mind for me. Other companies may cross $1 Bn revenue from India in the future, but this one’s approach/story will always be unique. Thanks @svembu for supporting me and thousands of others!
Loading suggestions...