We believe that it is natural as companies scale and evolve to have team members move on to new roles both inside and outside of the company. Our leadership team believes that a positive culture that celebrates wins, even when they are small, is essential to our long term success, so while this is tough feedback to receive, we’ll be sure to learn from it.įor additional context, our attrition rate is quite low in comparison to industry averages and we announce exits in our employee-moves channel in Slack. Thank you for taking time to share your thoughts on our culture and our leadership - we value your perspective and will ensure we’re giving all team members additional opportunities to be heard in ways that are supportive of different communication styles. It's my responsibility as the leader of this company to create an environment where our team feels included, respected, and appreciated. I am sorry that this has been your experience at Paperless Parts and feel bad that this was the only forum you felt that your voice could be heard. There is an opportunity for questions but it is clear that they are not welcome (the call for them is often met by silence from over 100 people). The owner gives direction and expect it to be followed exactly. This is the dark side of having heroism as the main development pattern. There is a constant level of fear at the company that you will mess up and be found out. It is assumed that when a product fails or has a bug or a deadline is missed, this is a personal failing of the people involved who are then punished. When there are issues at paperless parts the blame game and finger pointing is intense. They are leaving what was supposed to be the opportunity of a lifetime because eventually the weekly toll of hype, heroes and heroics is just too exhausting to bear. Many original founders as well as senior people have left over the past 6 months. This trait enabled him to get the company off the ground but is now preventing future growth. Unfortunately it is all done under the watch of the owner who has an over-sized ego. Smart, fun curious people who like to build cool stuff. I work with some great people at Paperless Parts. The principles behind Agile development are not even on the horizon and at direct conflict with the command and control style leadership that is present. The owner has very little experience or background in modern software application development and is essentially using a 1990's business model mixed with a military style model to run the company into the ground. Company principles are posters on the wall with vague concepts like 'be intentional' which can be used for whatever purpose the owner deems fit at a given moment. When folks have tried to have discussions with senior management about problems they encounter they have been told that ‘the time for discussions is over, execution is required’. Many concepts such as transparency are understood to mean strong and clear and timely communication of decisions from the top as opposed to opening up and showing the actual process whereby the decisions are being made. The owner asks for but does not welcome criticism or suggestions when they are made. At the end of the ‘meeting’ there is an opportunity for questions. The owner spends 15 minutes explaining to folks that they screwed up and how he had to be a hero (of course) with the customer. When there is a bug or failure in the software, a large meeting is called. You will then be on a well-worn path to leaving and roughly every month at paperless parts a senior person quietly leaves. When you get tired of the hype and start to question the direction, the owner will label you as having an attitude problem and not getting what a startup takes (he himself has no experience outside of this one company). As the weeks go by and you keep hearing the same hype, but in your job you are learning about the low quality and bugs in the software, this starts to feel misaligned with what your are seeing. When you first join the company it is exciting to hear about the amazing products, valued customers and future growth. The fact that some folks do not like to speak in public or do not like public praise is not considered as relevant. One can literally see him getting more pumped up with each one. The first item on the Agenda is shout outs which quickly descends into a round of 'impress the owner with positive words'. It has the feeling of a high school football team mixed with a military boot camp. Where the owner gets to speak to the whole company about the future, the goals, the dreams, the possibilities. Every week at paperless parts there is an "annual company meeting".
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