Risk & Business Magazine Cal LeGrow Risk & Business Magazine Fall 2017 | Page 15

TEAM CULTURE
“Technology will merely amplify whatever habits you already have.”
of the company. When an issue arises
internally or with a client’s task, we
follow a “Five Whys” method where
you state the problem on a form we’ve
created, than ask yourself “Why?” and
again four more times until you arrive
at a solution. It’s incredibly powerful
and empowering.
Technology will merely amplify
whatever habits you already have. If you
have good habits, technology can help
magnify your results and if you have
bad habits, technology will usually just
get you to the wrong place faster. We
use technology effectively to further the
impact of our human powered team
culture. These are some of the tools
we’ve used to get our people charged up.
SLACK
Many of your know Slack and probably
use it to communicate with your teams.
We adopted Slack as THE means of
internal, written communication.
Emails were never exchanged between
team members, which meant that
public discussions included everyone
and were kept efficient through the
designation of topical channels. It
democratized our interactions and kept
our flat hierarchy…flat. The first Slack
integration we ever used was GIPHY,
which allows you to type a phrase
like “you go girl” and an “appropriate”
animated GIF would post in the
channel. It made people comfortable, it
made them laugh, it got their focus.
ZOOM
Zoom.us has been our video
conferencing platform of choice
since we started and we began weekly
huddles with the whole team almost
immediately. Being able to have live
video chat really helped us get to
know each other and connect in a way
that you couldn’t through text based
messages alone. If a team member
couldn’t make the live huddle, the
recording was made available so they
could watch it later and respond at their
convenience.
ROGER/FIKA
These two apps were indispensable. One
of Ari’s personal constraints was that
he has four children and at the time we
started the company, was only working
three days per week so he could be with
them the rest of the time . Roger made
it so that we could still get things done.
As a “walkie talkie” app, one of us could
record a two minute brainstorming
session to send to the other and hours
later, when we had a few minutes, we
could listen, digest it, and respond.
Eventually we would use Roger to send
messages to groups and even hosted some
asynchronous meetings with it. The team
behind Roger would eventually release
Fika, a video version of Roger that added
the ability to share images or webpage
while talking. Not only did this add clarity
to any messages we would exchange, it
made it really easy to make impromptu,
video announcements to the whole team.
That made us very accessible to the team
so we could support them and they could
work with us rather than for us.
OFFICEVIBE
This Slack bot would survey the team
each week with questions like “How likely
would you be to recommend working for
Leverage?” or “How supported do you
feel in your work?” The resulting survey
told us that we were doing really well
but there were three areas that needed
improvement. First, the team felt like they
were getting good praise and recognition
but the feedback wasn’t specific enough.
Second, they felt a disconnect with their
teammates. Finally, there was a lack of
alignment with our core values.
GROWBOT
This Slack bot allows team members to
give “props” to other team members and
it keeps score of how many points you
had earned. Now we started getting very
specific as to why someone was being
recognized for good work. In addition
we give weekly bonuses to the best
performing teammate and until this point
we would just read off the names. Now we
spend some time explaining exactly why a
particular person earned the bonus.
DONUT
Another Slack bot that pings two random
members of the team every Monday and
basically suggests a coffee date so they can
get to know each other. Now that could
mean an actual get together for coffee if
geography allowed for that, or a quick one
on one video chat.
MANIFESTO
This was one of the most challenging. The
surveys said there was a lack of alignment
with the core values of the company and
the truth was that we didn’t have any
defined on paper. It didn’t take long to get
the inspiration to write a document that
lays out the exact culture we have and
want to maintain at Leverage. This serves
as a way of setting the bar for new hires
and providing guidance to our veterans. +
Ari Meisel’s story starts in 2006, when some
unexpected news derailed his booming real
estate career: Crohn’s Disease: A highly-
debilitating digestive ailment, Crohn’s
barred Ari from leading a normal life. He
lost weight, energy, and the ability to work
with regularity — in fact, there were times
he could only work for 60 minutes a day.
With a blossoming business to run, Ari knew
an hour per day was unacceptable. Against
the advice of doctors and loved-ones, Ari
embarked upon an extraordinarily painful
journey to cure what medical textbooks
consider an incurable disease.
Through excruciating amounts of trial and
error, Ari not only regained control of his life
but beat this seemingly unbeatable disease
— and is now symptom-free.
Less Doing, More Living and Leverage
Virtual Assistants are the result of Ari’s
amazing journey back to health, happiness,
and well-being.
Ari lives in New York City, where he spends
every ounce of free time with his loving wife,
Anna, and four fantastic kids — Benjamin,
Lucas, Sébastien, and little Chloe.
15