Benbria’s Culture and How It Is Communicated and Maintained

Delighting customers and employees just feels good. We all have great brands that we love and enjoy. We know that there are those mediocre brands out there that get it wrong as well. Really wrong. Iconic brands have chosen to prioritize culture and inspire the masses through their relentless pursuit of excellence.

At Benbria, we help brands be loved by their customers and employees alike. This allows us to better serve our customers and employees. This page is about our culture and how we improve as a team so that we can better serve our customers and enable our employees.

Benbria’s culture is inspired by leading technology companies:

• Netflix Culture
• Amazon Leadership Principles

Values are qualities or standards that govern the behaviour of a person and principles are rules or beliefs that govern their actions. The main difference between values and principles is that principles are based on a person’s values.

Benbria strives to create a culture that enables employees to set ambitious goals and objectives. Employees that feel psychologically safe and are aligned with Benbria’s valued behaviours are encouraged to think big and take educated risks, to live outside of their comfort zone and make material impacts on the business.

We believe a company’s true values are best illustrated by the skills and behaviours that result in who gets hired, rewarded or let go. Culture is best understood as what is acceptable and what is not. By communicating and promoting the desired skills and behaviours, we enable a high performing culture to be fostered and maintained.

Judgment

• You understand that good judgment is the result of listening and observation.
• You rely on data and feedback from others to make informed decisions.
• You are skeptical of information that does not make sense.
• You seek diverse perspectives in an effort to understand and validate one’s beliefs.
• You spend the company’s time and resources wisely. 

Communication

• You communicate praise openly and concerns privately.
• You actively listen so that you can better understand before responding.
• You are concise in speech as well as in writing.
• You maintain a calm poise in stressful situations.
• You communicate candidly and directly at all times.

Impact

• You have a get things done attitude and obtain great satisfaction for delivering results.
• You regularly communicate progress in team meetings and actively participate.
• You create value consistently and can be relied upon to deliver at all times.
• You understand the metrics that govern your team and role, and work to achieve them.
• You embrace the company structure, initiatives and frameworks with an understanding that it is in the best interest of your team and the company as a whole.

Innovation

• You constantly look for ways to make things better.
• You look for opportunities to reduce complexity and keep things simple.
• You continue to educate yourself without direction as a master of your craft.
• You challenge existing assumptions and suggest better approaches.

Courage

• You take educated risks to increase speed and velocity.
• You make tough decisions without agonizing and delaying.
• You are willing to be vulnerable in the pursuit of truth.
• You give and take feedback from colleagues at any level and from any team.

Ownership

• You take ownership over your role and responsibilities within the organization.
• You seek clarity if something is not well understood to ensure the desired results.
• You never say “that’s not my job” and allow problems to fester.
• You understand that the opinions of your colleagues and clients are equally important.

Grit

• You are passionate and demonstrate perseverance for long-term goals.
• You don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results.
• You stay committed when you face obstacles.
• You care intensely about the success of the company.
• You inspire others with your pursuit for excellence.

Selflessness

• You seek what is best for the company and not yourself or your team.
• You are willing to help others when they are struggling.
• You are humble and open-minded about what others have to say.
• You debate ideas openly and embrace a decision even when you disagree.
• You support the interests and opinions of your colleagues.

Integrity

• You are courteous about people’s feelings and your impact on them.
• You play your position at all times as a key member of a high performing team.
• You respect your colleagues’ time and position within the company.
• You don’t say things about people that you would not share with them directly.
• You find opportunities to complement your colleagues for their achievements.

Customer Obsession

We believe that it is best to start with the customer and work backwards from there. It is important to know your competition. However, it is even more important to deeply understand your customer and focus on their needs and desires at all times. We obsess over customers and this includes our customer’s customers mainly because we are a B2B software company.

Highly Aligned, Loosely Coupled

Nimbleness is the biggest advantage of a company of our size. As companies grow, they become too formal, inflexible and slow moving. We are able to move much faster and our decision-making velocity is much higher as a result of the separation of strategy and tactics. We spend time documenting strategy, creating context, communicating objectives and key results, and reporting back on a defined set of metrics that govern the business on a monthly basis. This allows the teams to focus on the tactics in support of the strategy. Our success is the result of the talented individuals working well together and creating a context.

A Team, Not a Family

Benbria models itself on being a high performing team of talented individuals, not a family. A family is about unconditional love. People that work at Benbria are not here for the perks. A high performing team is not about seniority and tenure. It is about pushing yourself and others to be the best possible teammates and doing amazing things. It is up to leaders to ensure that everyone is performing well at their positions, working effectively together and is given new opportunities to grow and develop.

At Benbria, there are no brilliant jerks as they are detrimental to great teamwork. We insist on decent human interactions, no matter how brilliant someone may be or think they are. When highly capable people work together well, they inspire each other to be more creative, more productive and ultimately more successful as a team than they could be individually.

Insist on the Highest Standards

Our standards are unreasonably high in the relentless pursuit of excellence. Leaders in particular are excellent individual contributors and insist on high standards. They continually raise the bar and drive their teams to deliver high quality products and services. They do not let problems fester and come up with durable solutions for the long-term.

Hire and Develop the Best

We raise the bar with every hire and promotion. We recognize exceptional talent and look to move them through the organization into leadership positions. As leaders, it is our duty to develop new leaders and help people with career development.

People, Product, Profits

It’s important to prioritize the things that matter most and ultimately, this leads to the desired outcome. We focus on people followed by product and then profits and in that order.

A company’s employees are its most valuable asset. Investing in employee well-being, growth, and professional development fosters a sense of belonging and drives innovation and collaboration. We significantly value customer relationships as well, allowing us to build enduring relationships.

As a leading technology company we are focused on building innovative products and services that standout in the market. We are quick to adopt new technologies and approaches, and experiment often which allows us to remain nimble and competitive.

While profits are the ultimate goal of the business, they are seen as the result of excellence rather than the sole objective of the company. Satisfied employees lead to increased productivity and efficiency, reducing operational costs and enhancing overall output. Happy customers become advocates for the brand, resulting in increased sales and organic growth. We receive customer referrals often which is the ultimate form of organic growth.