This article was written by Himawan, Talent Development Manager, Indonesia, as part of 24Slides’ Storyteller’s Program.
At 24Slides, the company culture never ceases to amaze me. Not only does it build a comfortable working environment, but it is also what keeps us together. Back in 2021, as our team kept getting bigger despite the pandemic, a process of defining the values at the heart of the company was initiated. After months of discussing, consulting, and collecting data, our company culture was embodied in five core values: We are Ambitious, We Keep Growing, We Care, We are Brave, and We Trust in Each Other.
The 24Slides global team is across five countries now, so I asked one colleague from each office for their take on our values. Let’s see what they’ve got to say.
We’ll start with Robert, currently, our one-man army in the USA, sharing his perspective on the “We are Ambitious” core value. For him, ambitious is a different word for “doing your best,” and that is an absolute core. “I think it’s important to constantly look at how you can do better in what you are doing; because that leads to you questioning: Are you doing the best that you can?” he said. Regarding the core value, he thinks it basically means that we are ambitious on behalf of 24Slides. We’re ambitious in our purpose. We constantly push the envelope and stretch. “And by stretch, I mean getting into territory where it’s not necessarily super comfortable always, right?” he added. He also thinks it’s incredibly important that we’re not afraid to fail. “It doesn’t mean we should make mistakes, but we don’t fear them in a sense that we don’t let the fear of doing something wrong hold us back from doing something great,” he explained. Robert shared the three rules he gives his kids about school: Have fun, do your best, and learn a little. These are the things that he also does at 24Slides. He wants to be in a company where people come in and live up to their full potential – in all aspects of their lives.
From Denmark, it is Tania’s turn to share her views on the “We Keep Learning” core value. She believes growing is an extremely important aspect. “What brings us to a certain point in life is not what keeps us there, and in order to keep growing and learning, we must have a growth mindset and be ready to push the envelope always,” she said. For example, her team – the Sales department – has regular training sessions to share experiences and give quality feedback for personal and professional growth. She acknowledged that 24Slides encourages a growth mindset and provides a safe environment for people to feel vulnerable, fail, and make mistakes. “This is also often demonstrated by the leaders in the company, which fosters a great company culture of constantly growing, of being curious and being able to talk openly about the mistakes we make,” she added. She realized that by doing those things, we enable the whole company to learn from each other, which makes us very strong professionally and in terms of connections with each other.
Next, Jane from Ukraine would like to share her views on the “We Care” core value. She thinks it is important to be caring at a company. “It gives you the feeling that you are important, that you matter,” she explained, “especially when we feel it not only as an employee but also as a person.” Jane has directly experienced how this value is implemented in 24Slides. “It begins from everyday support with anything,” she said. Be it about work tasks or more personal issues, the company always cares. She can feel how the company trusts us 100% and gives us the feeling that our colleagues and manager are always willing to help. Despite the current complex situation in Ukraine, Jane felt that the company never pushed them. They always get the help they need. For example, due to electricity issues, the company supplied the Ukraine team with power stations. “They gave us space for recovery and adopting a new reality,” she added.
Moving on to the “We are Brave” core value, Briana from Peru shares her thoughts. She believes it’s 100% important to be brave here in 24Slides. One example is when our design teams must take the initiative in handling projects. “We usually handle complex orders and requirements that force you to keep looking for trends or analyze what the customer really needs,” she explained. Based on that reality, we have to take into consideration several points. She added that even though we are constantly updated about trends or better requirement understanding, there are times when customers don’t know exactly what they truly want in their slides. Based on her experience, the whole team would get involved to bring their points of view. Everyone should be brave enough to speak up. They are always welcome to discuss and decide what they should do. “It definitely takes teamwork to deliver the best product,” she concluded.
For the last core value – “We Trust in Each Other,” we got Dhevanda from Indonesia to share his insight and experiences related to that. He believes this core value brings comfort and makes us feel safe at work. It also helps us boost creativity and confidence. “As time goes by, it creates a habit of self-problem-solving,” he said. Currently working as a design manager, Dhevanda feels the benefit of this core value when leading projects. By trusting his team members to take on and sometimes lead big projects, they reinforce ownership, which improves their confidence and helps them learn from mistakes. Moreover, they become more sensitive in analyzing projects as they understand the process and keep learning from it. “In the end, every good thing that comes from trusting each other would end up in the improvement of productivity,” he added.
We’ve seen how important and impactful our core values are at 24Slides. They are more than just some guidance to work, but rather a shared vision within the team. To me, these core values are what form our identity at 24Slides. They are what unite us as a global team. We may come from different countries with different stories, but here we share the same values.