About a year ago, we at Affirm decided to add an OKR to our annual planning titled “High-Performance Culture”, to help shore up the necessary means (for the necessary means) of improving our collective productivity. (Yes yes, big company stuff, whatever – we grew revenue 46% last fiscal year on essentially flat headcount, that’s pretty addictive, and it doesn’t hurt the stock price.)
We measure this OKR by asking every Affirmer a handful of questions about their experience getting work done, eg “do you feel like it’s pretty collaborative here”, etc, scoring it on a 10pt scale, and trying to improve our score quarter to quarter. Generally, our score’s pretty high, and trending gently higher, so all good then?
Maybe, but how do you do better? High-performance culture is pretty easy to define: a culture of individuals doing productive work for the company in the most efficient way possible and helping others do the same, while generally having a good time. But what do you actually do [sir] to have such a culture? And what do you not do?
So I jotted down a few incomplete one-liners of what that means to me as Affirm’s founder and CEO. This list is neither exhaustive (I reserve the right to add and remove things here) nor is it even especially well-organized, but culture is like obscenity in Jacobellis v Ohio: you know it when you see it.
So here’s what I see at Affirm.
morality is a key ingredient in everything we do (and don’t do)
integrity is what got us where we are today, never compromise it
consumers, merchants, and capital partners are who we serve
stay humble and be curious about the needs of each of our constituents
take pride in providing safe access to fair credit; don’t judge what consumers use it for
bleed the colors, the values, the mission
Affirm is a meritocracy: your talent, skill, and willingness to put it all to work define you here
we solve multivariate optimization problems – a certain minimum intellectual capacity is required
demand excellence from yourself and from your teammates, don’t settle
work-life balance tends to take care of itself if you love your work
…remember that this is a marathon – take care of yourself and those you love
if you can’t keep up, we’ll try our best to help, but eventually you may have to leave
if you see that someone can’t keep up, you should step in to help them
we are a culture of individuals working together as teams
once someone is a part of the team, fully accept them as one of our own
whom you hire, and how you help them be productive is your top responsibility
be an owner, not merely an employee
do not allow “us and them” dynamics to foment anywhere at Affirm
run towards a problem; don’t assume someone else will take care of it
be a stress absorber for your team, not a stress amplifier
an occasional heroic act that helps Affirm win is a good thing, not a sign of poor planning
constant heroic acts required for Affirm to survive is a sign of poor planning
we take calculated risks – do the calculating!
make reversible decisions fast
bring the bad news to the team early – we’ll rally to help
use our product and understand its value to our customers
care about how we make things — mind the quality of the invisible parts
…do not let perfect be the enemy of shipping and iterating
time is the scarcest resource we have, be mindful of how you use yours, and your team’s
we are a writing culture, favor short, pithy n-pagers to novels or live rants
post-mortem everything: the successes, the failures, and the near-misses – and learn
we take our work extremely seriously — but not so much ourselves
if you disagree, you must speak up, even escalate – especially before a decision is made
fear of being wrong is not an acceptable reason for not speaking up
never accept an unexplained “no” for an answer – ask why
challenge ideas! good ones can handle the scrutiny, bad ones need to die on the vine
even the harshest critique of your idea is not an attack on you, don’t take it as such
no matter how brilliant you are, being a jerk is a ticket out of Affirm
know our business well, and know your area of the business cold
argue using facts whenever possible, but give your gut a voice too
once the decision is reached, commit
sometimes, Monday starts on Saturday
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