Culture is the collection of unwritten rules, norms, and values around “how we do things here.” Every human environment—from two-person couples to 20-person classrooms to 20,000-person companies—is embedded with its own culture.
Our culture is not right for everyone. Many people love our culture, and stay a long time. They thrive on excellence, accomplishing big things, going deep, building knowledge, and growing personally. We never claim that our approach is the right one. Just that it’s ours.
To make the Payflip culture tangible, we have defined a set of leadership principles. These principles serve as a framework for employees at all levels to make decisions that align with the company’s goals and vision.
Our leadership principles are the northern star under which every employee at Payflip makes decisions.
This document contains the 5 core Payflip values. Everyone at Payflip should know them, they are the foundations that define how we work and interact together.
For each of those values, you can go a level deeper, to our leadership principles.
Our Leadership Principles aren't inspirational wall hangings. Payflip members use them, every day, whether they're discussing ideas for new projects, deciding on the best solution for a user’s problem, or interviewing candidates.
Amazon
The concept of ‘leadership principles’ initially stems from Amazon, and is discussed in-depth in the book ‘Working Backwards’. A book by two former Amazon executives, Colin Bryar and Bill Carr, which details the unique management and business practices that contributed to Amazon's success.
In the early days of Amazon, Jeff Bezos was heavily involved in the hiring process, aiming to ensure that every new employee was a good fit for the company’s culture and high standards. However, as the company grew rapidly, it became impractical for Bezos to personally oversee all hiring decisions. This led to the development of formalized leadership principles to help scale Amazon's unique culture and approach to decision-making across a much larger organization.
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Alan
A lot of the principles put forward here, and throughout Payflip, stem from the book (& community) Healthy Business. This book was written by Alan’s CEO Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve and describes their vision on organising a company.