One love, ThoughtWorks

10 years ago

I was invited to a casual lunch in May 2011 to meet the founder of ThoughtWorks, Roy Singham. He was visiting my city, and he asked to meet to chat and learn more about me, my country’s technology and development.

After a long conversation, we found common roots and grounds in our political background and global views. For anybody that got a chance to meet him, everybody would agree that he is a fascinating world citizen, compassionate and a very smart person. Once he shared his vision of the expansion of the company in Latin America and the opportunities he was looking at, he invited me to join ThoughtWorks in an adventure that I would have never imagined.

It has been almost 10 years since I accepted the offer and moved to Brazil. Since day one, the journey has been full of growth, learning and building. When I started, ThoughtWorks in 2011, had 1500 people across 20 offices in 8 countries. It was starting out in Brazil with the first Latin American office with about 100 people.

It was rolling out a global model of the 3 Pillars which shaped out the principles and decisions of the company. The recruiting model was focused to attract passionate, brilliant people with outstanding talent. And a simple filtering model was applied, the 3 key cultural values, Attitude, Aptitude and Integrity.

Today, ThoughtWorks is in 16 countries with 48 offices and over 9k people around the world. I actually helped to establish and open 5 of the 6 offices in Latin America. :-D

My decision to leave this unique company wasn’t easy. I actually have been part of a third of its existence. I met so many amazing, compassionate and smart people across the globe, and I have contributed to build it up to the size and shape it has today.

In retrospective

Now that I look back, I can point to many great memories and lessons learned.

As a self-reflection and a contribution to my dear friends, colleagues and the community, I want to highlight 10 lessons of my 10 years, that have really made this an amazing journey for me.

1. Values and culture of a company is what keeps people in.

For people being able to appropriate and own the root values of the company. Scaling up consistently and remaining truthful to what we preach, have always been the secret weapon.

I have witness how people open up to learn and change with the right motivation. Creating a healthy environment to grow. This Safe Space has been of great importance to see people making mistakes, getting feedback, learning from it and coaching others.

When I started there was a no-asshole rule, which was a bit harsh and overprotective. It was enough for the early stages. Later it evolved to an Open-to-Learn rule. This evolution is what made it a place for people to explore unknown areas and share more experiences.

Among the topics that the culture used to growing organically, racism, diversity, marginalized groups and poverty have been issues that were discussed and exposed by their own victims. This open pulpit to other realities is what improved the culture and defined the values to pursue as a collective.

Seeing people amazed, surprised and in awe with the opportunities that this kind of debate would open for all, is priceless.

Back in 2011, we supported the early global transformational debates such as corporate affirmatives actions, equal opportunities, women in tech, and a shift in the balance of the technology business in the world. It wasn’t easy to figure out how to challenge root social problems of the industry. And after achieving great success, it was of inspiration to other companies.

So, what better than letting the own people to challenge the status-quo, propose radical ideas and letting them be the owners and protectors of the place they want to be at!

2. A place where your passion is appreciated, is a game changer.

If we grant space and encourage people to pursue their passion, the result will never be empty. It has been of such an inspiration the many I met that are so immerse in learning something new. People challenging themselves to grow with resilience and courage.

From how to deliver a better public presentation to how to solve a very complex problem. The passion has been the oil that made this engine work.

Once a young consultant approached to me, very conflicted and worried that she wasn’t ready to explain a complex solution to a client and wanted somebody more senior to do it instead. I suggested to her to avoid using the traditional presentation that others would use, and to do it the way she knew she could do best. She spent an extra day preparing for it and when the time came, everybody was amazed with the clarity, understanding and showcase she prepared. After that, the client requested her in every single meeting.

I remember the first after-office parties at somebody’s apartment. There would always be some people coding, reading or discussing a new technology. This passion and freedom to pursue dreams while sharing a beer with a friend is how I visualize Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow concept.

So that is how not only technological problems were solved, but also many social and political issues got addressed. By giving people a chance to use their whole heart to make the change they were longing for, others around get ignited to pursue and make dreams come true.

3. Constant learning and caring coaching models, makes all the difference.

Feedback is just the first step to identify where to improve. With people interested in helping others and taking responsibility to support that growth, a connection is created that is more powerful than any team bounding activity.

I am grateful that I’ve received the support of great people that pushed me forward, showed me the path and granted me with their experiences. Having this kind of people around, makes any trouble or challenge more bearable.

In this past 10 years, I have seen how powerful this connection is. Even the bravest or the outspoken ones, benefited greatly of the kindness and care of some that took them under their wings.

So, in order to keep evolving a more humanized culture, the space to learn and having the support of others, will keep the collective humble and kind with each other.

4. Smart is not enough when it comes without a heart.

In some companies where the culture is very alive and people is generally happy, I’ve noticed an interesting factor. Solidarity and empathy are vibrant and present.

It seems that having these two values makes it very simple to relate to others and share our vulnerabilities.

A fact I’ve seen working constantly these past years, is that it isn’t important how smart or intelligent a person is. If that person can’t apply solidarity and empathy with others, then any smart word comes out empty.

The real team bonding is the one where we all can share our vulnerabilities and find ways to join our abilities together to solve any problem. I have had the privilege to be in great teams, where I could be impacted in the way these 2 basic human values functions.

Solidarity and empathy are to all of us, that fresh breeze we need from time to time.

5. Courage and braveness are the career goal.

Consultancy in technology isn’t one of the easiest professions to choose. It is a very ambiguous, uncertain and challenging endeavor I have chosen these past years. The last 15 years I have been playing various hats, learning fast and finding ways to help others to solve complex problems.

One inspiring value I have seen in some colleagues, even in the most complicated situations of their careers, is how they applied courage and braveness to overcome and learn from it.

Today I am more aware that we won’t know all the answers. There will be times where we need to give a step forward even with very little information. Sometimes, we need to try, fail and learn quick to discover a solution.

I have met a brave woman who didn’t have a good level of English, was the youngest in the team and the only international person. And in despite of it, she took the challenge to be active in the solution of a problem. Proactively and with courage she found ways to overcome the situation and contribute in great manner.

A place where courage and braveness are more appreciated than diplomas, titles and positions, is where great talent gets what is needed to flourish.

6. Multicultural and representation isn’t just decorating flags.

Technology is today a meeting place for people from many nationalities, cultures and languages. It has allowed us to get connected across borders and gather international teams.

Time zone isn’t a big challenge anymore and tools for communication are more present in our lives than face to face coffee chats.

One thing I’ve learn and noticed is that due to all the improvements to work across borders and meet people from distant places in the world, we take for granted the privilege of being multicultural.

Just as Tanja Vesala-Varttala and Teppo Varttalathe defines in their paper, “Multicultural is a multilayered nature of the situations in which corporate communication across cultures (especially in English) nowadays takes place.”

Across the many travels I’ve done in my life, I understand culture as the chip in the back of our heads. It will guide each individual to act unconscious and consciously in the way their culture has defined for them. This fact makes our interaction with other team members very rich and interesting. They might not act the way your own chip is expecting.

In corporate environments that embrace the difference and adapt to learn from others, a real multicultural setting takes places. Understanding is basically the main requirement to reap from a diverse collective.

I remember dearly, 9 years ago, a team from Brazil was visiting a client in North America. We spent over 3 months working with them and among many cultural differences, there was one that impacted deeply our local team. They called it the Brazilian lunch time. The fact that the visiting team would take a peaceful and out of office 1 hour lunch was surprisingly a new idea to the local team.

It went from a complain to our manager to a multicultural learning for all. The local team understood the cultural habit and reasons behind it and even adapted some practices to respect it. So instead of booking a meeting over the lunch time, or eating in front of the computer, they started to join us for lunch.

Only when we can open ourselves to the reality of others, understand the cultural differences and embrace them as part of our new co-shared reality, we can call our workplace and companies Multicultural.

7. English isn’t the only language in the world.

If there is something that technology has reinforced to all of us, is that there are many ways to communicate between each other. Inclusion and accessibility had shown that verbally speaking is no longer needed to collaborate in the workplace.

So, one mistake I’ve seen companies repeating is believing that by speaking English and norming it in the workplace, it turns the company an inclusive place.

It is already a challenge for the industry the great talent that is not even able to apply for a position due to the English requirement in the list. In terms of privilege, it is known that many countries, English is not even taught. Does it mean that only the ones that got a chance to afford extra classes, and had enough exposure to the language, would we worthy of working in tech?

Ten years ago, when I joined the company, English was the norm. Team members were bound to speak in English among others. It was useful in a meeting with a client, but when a local team would go for lunch, all Brazilians, they would choose English rather than their own language.

This behavior was so surprising that I inquired about it. The answer of the majority was that it was a company’s policy to use English. By being a norm, they would be afraid of being excluded or even fired due to their incompetence in the language.

But language is a key component of an individual’s culture. It is a living part of that person, so why to cut it out?

I am glad that along all these years, we were able to improve in the way the policy was imposed and now we encourage the local culture and language to dictate the norm. By doing so, identification and engagement from the local community was attained and people felt safer to be themselves.

So now that companies are recruiting people to work across borders in a remote setting, they need to think how to nurture and integrate their internal values with the cultural experience and language of the many distributed across the world.

8. Women were always here to rule and stay.

I remember how radical it felt in 2013 to say that the expectation and goal for the new office in Ecuador was to reach at least 50% of women representation in the office, and a woman as general director. It wasn’t an easy task, but due to hard work of many great people, it was conquered.

It isn’t even a decade from that moment, and it is still challenging to find companies in technology, which is directed, driven and with more women than men.

This fundamental social problem in tech is real and a great risk to the future of the industry. The good side is that we all are more aware of it and there are various actions being taken, even though it is not yet enough.

Women leading men in tech has become a benchmark for many companies. It is a first step, but unless a whole company understand the social problem and consequences, the goal of giving back the place women deserve, will take a while.

In times where diversity is a buzz word, it should be more than a company’s quota or affirmative policy. It needs to be embedded in the culture and values daily. Being remembered of our privilege, the shortcuts we were able to take and the extra help we got should compel us to humbly freed the way for the less privileged.

I am glad that I could witness and be part of the challenging debates and the many meetings brainstorming ideas and finding changes that needed to happen in the company. ThoughtWorks has grown to what it is now only due to the unselfish effort of many women who raised their voices loud enough so changes could happen.

9. Inclusion, diversity, equality and equity is more than a marketing cliche.

It is more common to see companies celebrating diversity and making it public. Sometimes it looks like mere propaganda and like filling in a checklist to be politically correct.

One thing is to cheer for diversity, and one other is to live it in the workplace.

I am so honor and glad to be able to learn from so many great people what inclusion, diversity, equality and equity really means. And that is the safe space we could build together along these past years. Discussions and action groups for gender justice, racial inclusion, social justice impact programs and a more people-oriented career development allowed us to discover and experience ways to make it a better place.

Only a company that dares to be challenged in these 4 values would be able to understand how to improve daily and be truthful to their collaborators. It was in the deepest desire of the founder to create a workplace where we could challenge, protect and support each other to grow to a better company.

10. Technology that isn’t solving a social problem, is a tool that takes advantage of the poorest in the world.

We are sitting in the middle of a very interesting point in the history of humanity and technology. It is actually this present where the science and technology have shown that we could fix almost any problem.

Free knowledge flowing across the veins of the world as fast as an eye-blink. The amount of data that gets collected, the various models to predict stuff with it. The automation skills and machines learning things. Complex algorithms running in our pockets. Machinery that only Sci-fi movies imagined having. Robots sharing our houses and playing with our kids. People having Christmas dinners over voice and video. And the list can continue, but you get the idea.

When I met Aaron Swartz in an event of the company, his passion for liberating the knowledge was so intense and clear that it was the main answer he saw to solve problems in the world. At the point that he gave his life for it.

Can you imagine what would happen if the whole world would have access to all the knowledge being produced nowadays? Would many of the critical social problems could be solved?

Instead, I see many companies profiting from the ignorance and need of the people. Knowing that there are structural social problems in a society, much of the tech being build is directed to take advantage of that “user’s needs”. And there is few being done to fix the roots of that same problem. As long as it exists, the profit margins would keep growing for many.

This technological dystopian image is becoming so real in many places around the world. From handheld devices used to track and supervise employee’s performance to the amount of plastic waste produced daily by delivery apps.

It is not far from our reality, environmental impact and the carbon footprint hasn’t decrease with the amount of technology and consumption produced. On the contrary, it is doomed to grow even more unless we hit the red stop button in the production lines.

It has been of much inspiration to meet people that crossed my paths in ThoughtWorks and learn to believe that technology could actually be a Solution rather than thousands of lines of mere profitable code.

So, if there is money, tech and knowledge to solve very complex problems, could the basic social ones be solved first?

I do trust that with the right heart in place, new leaders and visionaries would create and support new radical ideas. It doesn’t need to be crazy and wild ones. Why not to start with how to solve a fair distribution of food and fix hunger in the world? Maybe opening the knowledge and provide all countries with free educational tools would be a first step? Less waste and plastic, why not? Better, healthier and cleaner food for all? Even fixing daily human tasks, to give people some time back could actually improve their quality of life.

I strongly believe that it is at this point of history where we can shift direction and as technologists, make the difference that we always dreamed with.

Thanks and big hugs

After sharing some of my reflections and thoughts, I can’t think a better way to close this chapter than thanking the many brilliant, kind and inspiring people I got the honor to meet in my journey in ThougthWorks.

Now that I prepare myself to embark in a new and very promising adventure, I can give my word that I will carry with me the many great lessons learned and dear memories of all these many years. And that I will keep fighting for the social justice to make of this world a better place.