Assembling a new kind of team: Embracing change as a path toward innovation

Our team blogs have previously featured team members who have joined the Coactive community. There we have highlighted their unique personal and professional talents and invited them to share their experiences that describe what makes Coactive a great place to land as an employee in our industry. This week, we’re taking the opportunity to highlight how our company’s values have continued to strengthen and evolve as Coactive has grown.

Culture remains our first product.

Our team is growing.

It is no secret that Coactive AI is expanding. Over the past year, we have had the pleasure of adding a stellar group of diverse individuals from many different industries to our team.

As we have grown, an important question has arisen regarding how do we maintain the culture that we’ve all come to know and love exactly as it is? If you think about it, that’s almost a trick question, because the truth is – we can’t.

However, despite what may be natural to assume, a changing culture does not always mean a negative culture. As Coactive grows, our culture continues to develop and we are working to ensure that that development is continuously headed in a positive direction.

New people bring new energy.

Back to the initial question. You may be potentially wondering why we can’t keep our culture exactly as it is while we grow?

Well with each new hire, comes an unique individual, who carries with them different past experiences, expertises, and perspectives. We pride ourselves on not seeking people who are “culture fits,” which otherwise could be understood as team members who are exact replicas of ourselves. Instead, we focus on bringing on people who embody our values and have the potential to push them forward in positive ways.

It is quite natural for most people to find value in others who think like them, react like them, and, quite frankly, are just like them. However, at Coactive we work diligently to resist and disrupt that urge. We don’t desire to hire team members who “fit in” with us, like a clique who sits at a coveted high school lunch table. We want new team members who will positively add to the great culture we already have and are willing to continue to build with us in ways that will have us emerge as an industry leader on company culture.

A company that does not seek out differences in thought and practice may be a company that is doomed to stagnate rather than destined to innovate. At Coactive, innovation is our bread and butter - so creating a team capable of meeting the challenge of innovation is all important.

Assessing our culture.

Longtime followers of Coactive may have noticed or wondered if the guiding principles that make up our philosophic ethos look a little bit different from a previous iteration. We are proud to say that your inkling is correct - just like our team has grown, so have our principles changed.

More specifically, during our most previous internal culture assessment, we made the decision to reduce our guiding principles from eight to four.

While the spirit of the original eight remains, we wanted to really drill down to the core of what we value. Refining our guiding principles did not involve us abandoning previous commitments. Rather, refining our guiding principles gave us the room to strengthen them. Being more specific has allowed us the opportunity to hold ourselves more accountable, as individuals and as a team, with ensuring that we show up every day with the united objective of being a company where we build products and positively develop our people.

Updated values.

We get it - clicking on links is hard work. Here are our elevated principles in full:

- We view our culture as our first and most important product.

Culture is who we are, what we say, and how we act. It is our most crucial priority and our greatest strength, and we treat it as such, continuously building and deploying the best version of it.

- We are one team.

It's a relay race, not a 100m sprint. We each own our part and give it our all, but we only win by working together as one team. We are all supporting roles. We do not shy away from responsibility and accountability. We take ownership to ensure nothing falls through the cracks, and we are not afraid to pitch in and share the load. In victories and in defeat, we never lose sight of the bigger picture. We put aside our egos, always showing gratitude for what we have and towards one another.

- We value feedback and have difficult conversations upfront.

Opinions are valued. We want everyone to have them and encourage active dialogue around each viewpoint regardless of where it comes from. We also present the reasoning behind our outlooks and invite feedback. We have difficult conversations upfront, actively creating the space necessary. Through clear, thoughtful, and constructive dialogue, we can learn from each other and build together.

- We act boldly with pragmatism and empathy.

When working with customers, partners, and each other, we always strive to find the optimal solution but never forget that we show respect, thoughtfulness, and empathy to all. Failure does not scare us, but we also do our best to mitigate the impact on our customers and partners. We take calculated steps before fiercely springing into action but once we do, we relentlessly pursue our goal.

No fear of change here.

This is likely not the only time that Coactive’s guiding principles may be modified. In fact, we promise it won’t be. We plan to continue actively assessing our culture as a form of collective reflection and responsibility. This is how we will remain dedicated to constantly improving – because at Coactive good isn’t good enough.  

We invite change, as we are influenced by every new hire, changing market landscapes, and the larger circumstances of the world around us. Without change there can be no growth, so rather than fear change or run from it - we actively welcome it in. Our culture is our first product, therefore we seek to continuously iterate on ways to improve, so that our first product is always our best product.

New team members.

So who should apply to join us at Coactive? The answer is simple: you.

If you find yourself drawn to our philosophy on and principles for culture, and are seeking a fresh place to land where you can have an outsized impact, then Coactive is the company for you.

We are seeking team members who will push themselves and us to be the very best version of ourselves possible. Individuals who love to give and receive feedback, who cherish the opportunity to work collaboratively, and want to be a part of a bold team making a difference in the sector of helping humans and machines work together are the kinds of individuals we want to work towards creating new worlds with.

Won’t you join us?

Culture is our number one product at Coactive AI, and the first thing we launched. We pride ourselves on having a truly collaborative, diverse, and ever-learning team. We’re also the industry leaders for analyzing unstructured image data. Are you ready to join the next revolution in machine learning? Check out our job openings.