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We’re so glad that you could be here today! I’m Alex Robinson, and this is Will Mitchell. Hey, everybody! We are with the Turing School of Software and Design. I am the Back End Engineering Director, and what that means is that I work alongside our instructional teams in the back-end program. I help support our instructors to thrive and show up for the students every day in the best way possible. I also oversee the curriculum to ensure that we are using best practices to instruct our students and help ensure successful student outcomes.
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And I’m Will, the Director of our Front End Program. My job is exactly the same as Alex’s, but I focus on our front-end team, specifically on JavaScript and React development. Before this, I used to be a Rails developer, so I have some context. How many Turing alumni do we have in the room? A couple? Awesome! Welcome! We’re glad you’re here.
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Cool! Well, we're going to have a fair amount of interactive elements today, so we're going to start with an icebreaker to get to know each other better. This is called 'Hive Mind.' Find a group of three to four people; you can just turn and face some people. On your own, write down answers to the following questions without sharing them yet. The first question is: What are the three best text editors? The second question is: Name three activities that you commonly do in water. The third question is: What are three things you would put in a box? We'll take two minutes for this. Go!
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Now, turn and meet some people and score yourselves. You’re going to go around and share your answers, getting one point each time someone says an answer that you also wrote down. For example, if you wrote down 'swimming' for activities you do in water, and two other people in the group wrote 'swimming' too, you would receive two points. We’ll give you another two minutes to tally your scores and also introduce yourselves, stating your names. Alright, 10-second warning!
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Cool! Does anybody have 20 points or more? Raise your hand! No? How about 10 points or more? 10 points or more? Okay! How many points do you have? 16 in the back? 12? I think 16 is our winner unless anyone can beat that! Well done! Congratulations! Your prize is a notebook and a pen! Thank you all so much for coming today.
00:03:33.299
The name of the workshop is 'Intentional Team Building,' which I believe is what we called it when we pitched it. What does that mean today? We will be discussing and working together on values-driven organizations. What does it mean to be a values-driven organization? Essentially, in my definition, it is about having a set of guiding principles that allow all stakeholders to thrive. This can apply to your entire organization or just your small team.
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Today, we’ll dive into the definitions of a values-driven organization, see some examples, and conduct a workshop to try to add a new value to an existing team. Why do this? What are some of the benefits of being values-driven? There are many, but some key highlights include team happiness, productivity, innovation, and retention. If you do this as a team and maximize these aspects, you're probably enjoying your work, and as a result, the people who benefit from your work are enjoying it as well.
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Strictly speaking, Costco is not typically what you would think of as a tech company, and I’m guessing nobody in here works for Costco. Still, Costco is a great example of a company that places values front and center in its work. Some research on Costco will reveal that collaboration and teamwork are highly valued. Everyone at Costco works on small teams in their respective buildings daily. They also value employee training and growth, fostering the development of their workers.
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Furthermore, a positive attitude and customer service are top priorities for Costco. They believe it’s essential that customers feel greeted by friendly people and that their issues are resolved quickly and efficiently. What outcomes stem from this approach? For Costco, they have experienced employee turnover rates that are less than half of comparable businesses, such as Walmart, Target, and even lately, Amazon. Their average worker pay is over $41,000 a year, which, while not a large sum, is approaching a living wage in many states and is more than 40% greater than the average in those similar businesses. They also have a loyal customer base, and over the past 25 years, their company has grown in value by over 7,000%.
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So, we're going to define some terms: behaviors and values. The behaviors of your organization—the way your team acts—define your culture. Culture is not just about aesthetics like a ping-pong table; it is fundamentally about how the organization acts and behaves. The values that your company holds, whether implicit or explicit, determine those behaviors.
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Now, quick terms: An explicit value is what you state as crucial to the success of your team or organization. For example, Costco explicitly defines collaboration and teamwork as critical values. On the other hand, implicit values are the unstated or unwritten rules that guide your team or organization. For instance, perhaps transparency is vital in your organization, but it hasn’t been formally documented as a value; it simply reflects how people tend to behave.
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However, implicit values can also have negative effects. For example, if an organization seems to value employees spending excessive time at their desks without explicitly saying so, it can create a pressure to do so. Such implicit values can counteract a healthier culture.
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Before we proceed, I want to shift to a group exercise. Since this is a workshop, I encourage you to find a neighbor, friend, or group of three, and discuss any organizations you know of that prioritize values to drive their operations. What values do they promote, and what effects do you believe these values have? If nothing comes to mind, what implicit values do you observe in your current organization? We will take five minutes for this discussion.
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I would love to hear from a few groups about what you discussed. This is Robin; she’s helping us today, so let’s all say hi to Robin! Now, who would like to share about an organization or implicit values you’ve noticed in your organization?
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In the back! Hi! I previously worked with Hashrocket and Thoughtbot. Both organizations have implicit values reflected in how they hire and mentor their members, which is known as the 'HAT' principle: humility, accessibility, and teachability. They emphasize these values when hiring and then continue to mentor staff to ensure their growth into senior positions within just a few years. This philosophy carried over to our group after we worked with them.
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The second example pertains to an implicit value I experienced at a different company, specifically regarding transparency. Having our CEO conduct an all-hands meeting monthly where key metrics were shared created openness. While some found it informative, others were intimidated by the revenue reports, questioning why we weren’t making profits. Transparency is a double-edged sword; it can be beneficial or detrimental to a team's morale.
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There will be plenty of opportunities to share your insights, so I’m going to step down and get closer to you. Right now, we're going to conduct a case study. We’ll look deeply into Turing and its instructional teams. We’ll cover what a day looks like for an instructor at Turing, their responsibilities, our explicit instructional values, and the behaviors exhibited by the instructors.
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Can I see by a show of hands who is familiar with Turing? A few of you? For those unfamiliar, Turing is a seven-month accelerated developer training program that is fully remote. During the program, students go through six weeks in four different areas, with a week off in between each segment. We have both front-end and back-end programs. The front end focuses on React and JavaScript while the back end utilizes Ruby and Rails.
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If you have access to the Discord channel, please check out the 'Intentional Team Building' Channel where you will find a link to a GitHub repository. For those already on that page, go ahead and click on the case study. We’ll take the next five minutes to read through the materials and later discuss in our groups what we’ve learned.
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Returning to your original groups of three to four people, reflect on the case study, identifying the explicit and, perhaps, implicit values represented there. We want to explore three questions during your discussion: Are there behaviors that you can map to the explicit values? What behaviors seem to stem from the implicit values? And what might be implicit values that drive those behaviors? You’ll have around ten minutes for this discussion.
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I would love to hear what your groups discussed, particularly your observations regarding behaviors connected to explicit values shared in the case study. Can I get some volunteers to share their insights?
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Sage, go ahead! One connection our group made was between the value of accountability for achieving high standards in both technical and professional performance and the behavior of iterating on the curriculum and constantly striving to improve it. Those two aspects are indeed linked.
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Would anyone else like to share a correlation between behaviors and explicit values? I overheard good conversations over here. Would you like to share?
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Sure! We discussed how a culture of inquiry built upon a safe and trusting environment encourages students to take risks, be vulnerable, and seek help. That aligns with the first bullet point regarding instructors enjoying working with students and finding fulfillment in seeing them learn and apply challenging technical concepts.
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Let’s explore a more complex aspect: implicit values. What behaviors did you observe that might be the result of implicit values, ones not overtly expressed? Many groups observed that instructors were readily available in the evenings and seemed mentally and emotionally drained by the end of the day. From this, we inferred an implicit value of student-first priorities.
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Several also noted that instructors frequently forwent their professional development time because there was always something more pressing regarding student needs. This implied value centers around the concept of prioritizing students first.
00:17:07.699
To that point regarding instructor availability, our group questioned if an implicit value was that if students experience challenges, they should feel empowered to ask the instructors for help rather than being comfortable with discomfort or attempting to push through themselves.
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We also pointed out that although there was a list of student values explicitly outlined, there wasn’t an equivalent list for instructor values. This disparity raised questions about what happens downstream when there are explicit values for students but none for instructors.
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Would anyone else like to contribute?
00:18:09.820
I wanted to add on the previous point regarding the lack of explicit values advocating for instructors’ personal development. It would be beneficial for instructors to highlight what professional developments they engage in. For example, talking about mistakes they've made and celebrating their growth through conferences and learning options would foster a supportive culture.
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Let’s turn to how we might introduce new explicit values. The value we’re focusing on today is the importance of professional development. Taking advantage of these opportunities is vital for instructors; essentially, it’s about promoting a value of continued growth.
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This emphasis on continuous professional growth in context is crucial since instructors who grow and learn can better empathize with their students' experiences. Growth in professional development also raises engagement levels, ultimately energizing daily work. This development makes them more beneficial assets to themselves, their teams, and the students they instruct.
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Next, let’s discuss how we could integrate this value of continuous growth into the team. Consider what behaviors you would want to see from your team and what strategies might encourage buy-in, especially if not everyone supports this value. Lastly, how many team members would need to be on board for this value to truly take effect? We’ll take about ten minutes to strategize and then share our innovative ideas.
00:20:08.580
I would love to hear thoughts about the strategies you discussed for introducing this new value. It's interesting to note that saying 'this is important' doesn't always mean everyone believes it to be so. How can we bridge that gap and help the team adopt this value?
00:20:48.480
One strategy our group discussed focused on share-outs related to the $1,200 learning and development stipend. Creating opportunities to share experiences, such as attending conferences or courses, actively promotes the benefits of professional development. Specifically, instructors can report back on how their learning enhanced their teaching methods or student engagement to inspire others. Additionally, we emphasized that it’s critical for leadership to model professional development behaviors so that the whole team can observe and participate.
00:21:43.080
Another idea was to involve instructors in sharing their professional development with students to instill a culture of learning throughout their careers. This demonstrates to students the value of ongoing education and how it enhances their instructors’ effectiveness.
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I find it important to notice that while proposed values might seem beneficial, clear incentives can encourage prioritization. Some intricacies come into play when personal development initiatives conflict with pressing student needs. How do we communicate that?”},{