Innovation #7 Love, respect, freedom, responsibility, trust
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Shakr employees are seen working inside their office located in WeWork Gangnam. / Courtesy of Shakr
This is the seventh in a series of articles on companies with innovative work cultures. — ED.
Shakr's core values guide employees to make meaningful contributions
By Yun Suh-young
It's hard to count how many times the words "love" and "respect" were used when Shakr Media's CEO David Lee spoke about the culture at his company.
"This might come as flaky or warm and fuzzy but I do believe in love in the workplace. I'm not talking about a lovey-dovey thing, but fellowship _ being able to rely on the people around you to care about their overall wellbeing, because their overall wellbeing affects their ability to be an on-going contributor to the team," said Lee, speaking to The Korea Times.
Shakr is a video creation platform established in 2010 by Korean-Canadian Lee, which helps small to large businesses create their own marketing videos. The company was valued at $22 million last year.
Another word that was as frequently used in his talk was "trust" which, pretty much, runs in the veins of this company.
"We feed off each other _ it's incredibly nourishing for the mind and soul. These are reasons why we've been able to sustain Shakr. That amount of trust is empowering for me," he said.
After spending a couple of hours at the company and speaking to employees there, I could understand why. Shakr was built on the foundation of trust _ toward each other, toward the founder and toward the company.
"He's a great believer in trust," said Lee Min-ku, chief technical officer (CTO) at Shakr, "Once he trusts someone, he trusts unconditionally."
Freedom and responsibility
It is no wonder that Shakr's employees picked "freedom" and "responsibility" as keywords that described the company. Because without trust, it would be hard to give employees unconditional freedom, with which, in turn, individuals would have to take full responsibility for.
"I think freedom and responsibility are the two words that best describe Shakr. We don't have set vacation days. We take a break whenever we want to. If we're not feeling well one day, we'll just take the day off. But as much as there's freedom given to us, responsibility follows. We need to perform. Finding that balance can be a heavy responsibility for an individual," said Min-ku, the 23-year-old CTO.
"Because there is no set number of days, some take fewer days off. If a person doesn't take enough breaks, colleagues encourage that person to rest because if they work like that, they'll burn out. We don't want that to affect their performance."
The Shakr logo on the office's glass wall / Courtesy of Shakr
Director of Video Effectiveness Lee In-woo's words were exactly in sync with the CTO, although the two had been abruptly asked to talk to the reporter at different times.
"There's high level of freedom and high level of responsibility here. People at other companies may envy freedom, but once they come here, they need to find things to do on their own. If they're not used to that, they're likely to leave," said the 25-year-old.
"I'm glad the culture of freedom and responsibility settled naturally in the company, without anyone forcing it. Nobody really cares how many vacation days other people take because we all know and trust our colleagues," she said.
According to the CEO, nobody has abused the flexible vacation policy up to now.
"We have a set-your-own vacation policy with two overriding principles: 1) You do need a vacation, 2) You need to fulfill your responsibilities _ that's a hard thing because it means you need to be an active contributor to the team," he said.
"Without freedom, it's hard to make people embrace responsibilities. We have a group of people who've overcome challenges to really earn the freedom and take ownership of responsibilities. An environment where people are looking over others' shoulders, comparing vacation times, and are worried about internal politics is something we've tried really hard to avoid.
"We had strict policies on vacations and what times people come to work, rules around when you report... We tried that at the beginning of Shakr and it just didn't work."
The company's guiding principle is "making a meaningful contribution," he says.
Since that doesn't necessarily result from physical presence, Shakr's employees can work remotely, from home or at another WeWork branch. Shakr is currently based in the Gangnam office of WeWork, a global co-working space provider.
"We can work wherever we want. If someone's a foodie, that person will work at a cafe near the restaurant that they're going that day. There's no limit to how many times we can work remotely," said the video director.
Love and respect
"I can't stress enough the love and respect here _ it's our foundation," said David Lee. "It's the most loving professional group that I've worked with in my entire career."
He said there are times when he makes unpopular decisions, but they are "executed a lot more effectively and with more understanding because of the culture of love and respect at Shakr."
"Love and respect for your peers, colleagues eviscerate egos in a very healthy way. The idea of hierarchy disappears. It's not forced to disappear, it's just naturally not there," he said.
Shakr employees didn't deny their CEO's mushy words.
"I don't think it's only me that feels that way. People here really care for each other. For instance, when a person is sick, they show sincere concern and send you flowers or macaroons. If a person needs to eat porridge because they're not feeling well, everyone might eat the same thing for you or buy you one. You're not left out. It may sound like a natural thing to do, but not everyone thinks it's natural," said In-woo, the video director.
But it wasn't like this from the beginning.
"Some of the values that we had were more around hard and analytical side of things. I was less into the soft side. It was only later when I realized that if we don't pay attention to and take care of the people that we have here, then it's going to be cracking the whip in order to make progress."
Ironically, it was the CTO that influenced the CEO to build a foundation of love and trust.
"I came to value love and respect in the workplace because of our CTO Min-ku. He was the one who drove the narrative around building an organization of trust and I naturally drove toward the idea. It's an important basis for a high performing team in sports as well," said Lee.
"Having the base of trust and love builds a strong foundation that we know is unshakable when we have really hard challenges ahead of us and we know we can count on each other."
No ego, no hierarchy
An interesting characteristic of the company is that college graduates are definitely not the majority. Many of them have dropped out of college or have never entered one, much like the CEO himself who is a high school dropout. As a result, manpower is young _ most are in their 20s, with the 36-year-old CEO being the oldest.
"There's no hierarchy here. Depending on the topic or role, certain people have more leverage. It's all merit and performance-based," said Min-ku, the CTO.
"There is no condescension between employees based on the number of years they've worked. Everyone listens to everyone regardless of age or experience. The relationship between our CEO and employees is also horizontal. In fact, David tries to climb down the ladder. Unlike other CEOs, he does the trivial work to allow employees to focus on their work," said In-woo.
"When I was an intern here, I was really touched when David found me working alone during lunch time trying to sort out business cards. He took half of my work to help me finish. That's when I realized this company was really horizontal."
A Shakr employee delivers a presentation at a seminar at WeWork for clients / Courtesy of Shakr
There have been some issues with condescending attitude when older people joined the company.
"When we had people in their 40s, they were condescending to their younger colleagues. We acted firmly to try to address that. They're no longer around because there's no place for that," said David.
"In my previous companies, I've seen a lot of egos playing in big roles, creating a sense of apprehension, fear. Egos were a toxic part of my previous experiences. Confrontation, competitive scenarios, the take downs and insults _ it takes a lot of mental power. It's an unhealthy use of a person's energy. It could be used for making progress, making a difference," he said.
"I've been that guy who was confrontational, hold ego up, compete for the sake of competing _ and it was just exhausting. Did I accomplish a lot back then? Relative to my peers, but I accomplish a lot more now when I let my ego disintegrate and really see how the pieces fit together. So I found it to be really refreshing when we naturally tried to dissolve egos."
It was the attitude of the members at Shakr that helped shape the ego-free environment.
"We don't have a junior-senior relationship. My colleague is four years younger than me and very talented but I don't feel offended when she tries to teach me something. Actually, I'm grateful," said In-woo.
"If I'm upset in that situation, then people will think 'no wonder.' But if I express my gratitude, others will learn that it's something to be thankful for. Then they'll assimilate into the culture. We shouldn't have inferiority complexes. We need to let our ego down."