Workshop for Venture for America fellows on building, aligning, and managing culture at various stages of organizational development, from a decade+ building Duo Security.
On a scale of 1-5 (least to most), how important is culture to you in choosing a company? ⓘ Start presenting to display the poll results on this slide.
What is Culture? Culture is the everyday reality of organizational life. “Culture is what we do and say, the way we behave, the way we treat each other, our products, our customers, our community and ourselves. In essence, it’s the personality of the company.” – Zingerman’s Delicatessen
Duo Culture At Duo, culture is the operating system of our team. Culture defines how we come together as a team to accomplish something bigger than ourselves. It is our only long-term, sustainable competitive advantage. We do not have more resources, time, or talent than our competitors. Everything we produce can be examined, reverse-engineered, and copied. How we think and act – make decisions, find solutions, and incorporate learning – defines our success.
Duo Values ▸ Engineer The Business ▸ e.g. Experimentation, Hack Days, Lean/Agile ▸ Learn Together ▸ e.g. Retrospectives, Tech Talks, Book Clubs, Training ▸ Be Kinder Than Necessary ▸ e.g. Appreciations, Feedback, Conflict Resolution
Discovering Your Values 1. Name 3 colleagues that exemplify the kind of people we should hire, and why? 2. What are your best attributes that you bring to work everyday?
Product, Culture, Brand Purpose The Why Protect Others From Harm Mission The How Democratize Security By Making It Easy & Effective Vision The What The Most-Loved Company In Security Pillars Our Promise Easy Effective Trustworthy Values Our Principles Be Kinder Than Necessary Engineer The Business Learn Together
MFA & Access Direct US Inside Inbound 500 people Beyond Channel EMEA / Fed Enterprise Outbound 250+ people Growth Takes Change 2018 G row th Scale Ludicrous M ode!!!
CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION PROPERTY OF DUO SECURITY, INC. Punk Rock, Jazz, or Marching Band? Seed + Series A ● Productize ● Build product ● Product/market fit ● Early traction Series B ● Operationalize ● Management team ● Grow distribution ● Reliable results Series C... ● Strategize ● Growth portfolio ● Revenue models ● Leadership Startup ● Builders ● Rapid Change ● Not Predictable ● Many Hats Growth ● Improvers ● Iterative Change ● Some Predictability ● Roles Forming Scale ● Operators ● Controlled Change ● Predictable ● Defined Roles
CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION PROPERTY OF DUO SECURITY, INC. What stage company will you be joining? ⓘ Start presenting to display the poll results on this slide.
What makes for a winning team? Creative Rebels, Fast Learners, Team Players (... or Freaks, Geeks, Jocks) What do you select for? History, Skills, Values, Motivation
Manager Manifesto ● Build Trust ○ First job of any leader - confidence born of 2 dimensions: ○ Character: your integrity, motive, and intent with people ○ Competence: your capabilities, results, and track record ○ Listen first, demonstrate respect, keep commitments, assume positive intent ● Create Clarity ○ Alignment through transparency ○ Give direct feedback: ♢ and ♤, not ♡ and ♧ ● Drive Results ○ Through delegation & accountability ○ Agree on: What’s to be done, how they’ll be supported, how you’ll measure success ○ Push decision-making down: we create and own our own commitments ○ Have courage to fail: we win or we learn
Management Systems ● Regular 1:1s ○ 3 part agenda: about you, about us, your professional development ● Professional Development ○ Roadmaps to Promotion (RMTP) ○ Shadowing & Rotation ● Training ○ Internal - Duo University, Lunch and Learns, peer-led ○ External - courses, conferences, certificates ● Blameless Retrospectives ○ Agile, QBRs ● Planning ○ Offsites, summits, MBOs
Culture by Design Duo optimizes for transparency, alignment, & connectedness: ● Duo Lightning Talks Global monthly all-hands (DLT) ● Ask Duo Anything At DLT, plus Slack channel, anonymous feedback, ADA Hub ● Board Reports Every 6 weeks ● Duo Pulse Survey Bi-annual, plus working groups ● Sales Dashboard Bashboard app & office displays, Slack channel ● Appreciations & Karma At meetings & DLT, thanks@ app & office displays, duobot ● Duo Hack Day Practice collaborative innovation, 3x year ● Duo Tech Talks & LnLs Creating community and sharing knowledge ● Community Support Through service, sponsorship, engagement ● Coffee Roulette/Brew:30 Slack channel, bot, $5 coffee gift cards ● Duo Circles Slack channels & meetings of employee resource groups ● Culture Day Onboarding for every employee, led by leaders ● Local Conversations Site leaders, standups, rotations, Slack channels ● Cultural Production Videos, swag, stickers, company, team, releases, events
Duo Cultural Development 2011 5 HC Team Meetings Company Updates 2012 21 HC Culture Deck Duo Lunch Talks & Bios Appreciations & Karma Hack Day Holiday Parties Equitable Benefits 2013 44 HC Strategic Plan / OKRs Board Reports Ask Duo Anything Sales Dashboard Open Houses Interview Training 2014 79 HC Culture Day Duo Gives Duo Pulse Survey 2015 195 HC Duo Kickoff Sales Bootcamp Summer Picnics Duo Tech Talks 2017 547 HC Coffee Roulette 2018 726 HC Culture Zine Duo Circles
Company Action Plan Learning Advisory Committees Dedicated team of Duo leaders and team members with focus on providing support to those identified as initiative owners, and serving as a champion for initiative / program launches. Create spaces to continue the review and analysis of survey results, guide the ongoing program and initiative needs, and encourage sharing and learning on the team & individual level Engage Duo Circles A review of survey results demographic data with the appropriate Duo Circles to identify trends, identifying where overlaps and intersections occur across demographics, to guide future programming and community engagement. Manager Learning Cohorts Self identified cohort of managers to connect on identified areas of learning, crowdsource best practices and serve as an advisory for future learning & development initiatives and programming. Dept / Team Action Plans Department and team specific action groups created to analyze results and address low trending areas of focus, championed by the Department head / managers with involvement of all employees ACTION TO BE TAKEN THIS MONTH IDEAS BEING DISCUSSED THIS QUARTER
Next Steps: how you can be involved ❏ Participate in the review of your Department / Team results ❏ Join your Department / Team action planning efforts ❏ Consider joining a Duo Circle as they analyze and action plan any demographic information ❏ Have feedback on Company Action plan? Send to pbp@ ❏ Have other ideas? Please send them to pbp@ or share with your Department leader
Board Reports ● Communicate our plans, progress, problems every 6 weeks ○ 3-5 paragraphs per department, plus CEO summary ● Sent to board as GDoc with comments enabled ○ Board meeting to focus on 2-3 topics of strategic concern ● Shared with entire company ○ After every quarterly board meeting and mid-quarter call ○ Typically ahead of DLT ● Also useful in onboarding ○ 8 per year, since 2014 ○ Effectively comprises the Book of Duo
Appreciations & Karma ● Model the behavior we want to see ○ Uphold success - not top-down, but all across the business ● Give diamonds, not hearts ○ Timely & specific, vs. general positive feedback ● Positive feedback in public, critical feedback in private ○ At DLT, on Slack (#thanks/duobot), thanks@ app for office display ● Social trust required to give or receive feedback well ○ Build Trust - #1 directive of Duo management (#2: Create Clarity, #3: Drive Results) ● “Be Kinder Than Necessary” - go out of your way to help others succeed ○ Not always comfortable - like pointing out spinach in someone’s teeth
Duo Hack Day ● Why hack? ○ The best ideas come from all parts of the company ○ We have exercise our innovation muscles to be successful ○ You can get a lot done in a single day with focused effort and the right team ○ If we’re not experimenting and failing frequently, we’re not taking enough risk ○ Have fun and create new social connections! ● Great hack day projects… ○ Take risk, make bold bets ○ Involve cross-functional teams ○ Are not your day job!
Duo Tech Talks ● Monthly tech talk series ● World-class security leaders with BlackHat-quality talks ● Hosted across Ann Arbor, Austin, and San Francisco ● 40+ meetups ● 3200+ members ● 100+ average attendees
Duo Circles Duo’s Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) vision is to reduce barriers to brilliance. To accomplish this, we aspire to evolve diversity practice, focus on employee connectedness, and drive equity in tech for a sustainable impact. With the vision and strategy in place, our Duo team helps implement programs and initiatives to deliver on it. Duo Circles are a critical pillar of our overarching Diversity, Inclusion, & Connectedness strategy. Duo’s D&I dream is to become a place where connectedness is the cornerstone of our culture. Here is what Duo Circles hopes to accomplish: Engage and build community with each other. Through formal and informal interactions, we will get to know other team members across departments and build relationships that help us feel connected to one another. Give back to the communities around us. We hope to have a positive sustainable impact for communities connected to the Circle’s focus. Learn across difference and become the better for it. Learning together is one of our core values at Duo. We grow when we engage with people who are different in multiple ways. Develop leaders. By allowing a way for team members to step up by leading a Circle, we discover leaders with different talents. Rightsize equity in tech. By building a robust D&I program, we hope to build a brand as an employer who puts people first, cares deeply about culture as we scale by drawing the most talent and diverse team as possible.
Duo Circles Disability: inclusion and justice for those with disabilities Race & Ethnicity: community for inclusion & racial justice Gender: equality & empowerment across the gender spectrum Faith: a community for all faiths, spiritualities & meaning Families: inclusion for caretakers Social Class: community for economic justice & inclusion Veterans: inclusion and empowerment for those who have served Global: inclusion for nationalities, languages & home countries LGBTQ+: inclusion & justice across all sexual orientations Generations: community and wisdom across generations
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