Every leader talks about the importance of the company’s values. But how do values actually go from slogans in a document to bedrock principles that shape everyday life at a company?
According to two Greek founders, Dr. Jhonatan Bringas Dimitriades, Co-founder & CEO of AI-powered smart stethoscope company Lapsi Health, and Alexandros (Alex) Trimis, Co-founder & CEO of global travel mobility platform Welcome Pickups, the answer is often during the businesses’ most difficult moments.
Keeping It Real (and Respectful)
Jhonatan has both Peruvian and Greek roots and grew up between South America, the U.S, the Caribbean, and Europe. He’s a living embodiment of the advantages of diverse viewpoints. So when he started Lapsi Health, he and his co-founders were determined to create a culture that listened to and respected diverse viewpoints.
“We had a CTO based in Latin America. We had a COO based in Finland. Our chief medical officer is half Dutch, half Polish,” Jhonatan says. “From the beginning, we realized that we're not going to be a conventional European company.”
Being in the medical space, speed and high standards are also important. “You are developing something that will save lives and, because of that, there's rigor and there's responsibility,” Jhonatan adds.
Achieving these aims of innovation, excellence, and openness meant being conscious of eliminating bias. It also meant being clear about the culture around communication. Bringing together diverse voices to build life-saving technology requires the team to respect each other. But they also need to speak up about potential problems even when it might be uncomfortable.
“We are a no bullshit company,” Jhonatan reports. He wants colleagues to speak directly, but thoughtfully.
That was the vision anyway. Then came the inevitable pressures of startup life. “We were three days before a demo day and some things were not ready. We were pushing. You have to make it happen. We have the investors coming. We have partners coming. We have doctors coming to test the technology,” Jhonatan recalls.
Under intense pressure, he noticed, the value of ‘no bullshit’ started to transform into rudeness or even disrespect. Rather than ignoring these departures from the company’s values, Jhonatan used them as a teaching moment.
“We had a meeting and said, ‘Guys, there are some things that you just can't say to people. This is a respectful company. We are never going to be insulting each other, mocking each other, or treating each other as if I have more knowledge than you. You would not talk to your siblings like this, so you should not talk to your coworker like that either,’” Jhonatan says.
Rather than become a crisis where Lapsi’s values failed, the crunch period became a stress test for those values, an opportunity to see where they might have weak points and reinforce them accordingly.
A Travel Startup’s Biggest Test
The moment of crisis that tested the values of Alex’s company was very different, but his response was similar. As a travel company, Welcome Pickups was particularly vulnerable when the COVID pandemic struck in 2020.
“When COVID hit, we're growing about 80% year over year”, Alex remembers. Within two weeks, that growth reversed, going from +80% to a -95% drop, as hundreds of thousands of travelers were asking for refunds. Like many CEOs he was forced to let people go.
Research suggests that layoffs often have a terrible effect on culture and morale, but Alex and his team were determined to use the forced reductions to demonstrate rather than undermine their values, particularly their commitment to transparency and honesty.
“We tried to be very upfront from the beginning that we're making deep cuts in order to make sure that we can last without any extra cuts in the future, which was very helpful for the people,” reports Alex.
In the end, the company laid off 65% of its staff, reaching out to other businesses like delivery apps that were growing thanks to the pandemic to see if they could find new positions for as many of their people as possible
Even with the extra support, it was an incredibly difficult time, but one that, in the end, Alex believes reinforced the company’s culture rather than breaking it. It even strengthened one of their core principles. Welcome Pickups emerged from the pandemic with an even greater focus on efficiency, a long-time company value.
When much of the business was at a standstill, the remaining team used their time to focus on building internal tools and finding ways to optimize the business. This kept those that remained engaged, but it also set the company up for greater profitability and independence once travel resumed.
“We were early to the whole being cost efficient trend that happened the last two years because we had to be,” Alex says. “So after the second half of 2021 when demand started coming back in, we were a profitable company. Very lean, very tight. And we kept that until today.”
Hire well, lead well
What does it take to turn a moment of difficulty into an opportunity to strengthen your culture? Both founders stress the importance of taking your time and hiring thoughtfully, not just for skills but for cultural fit.
To ensure new hires will match the ethos of his company, whenever possible Jhonatan likes to bring on people he’s worked with previously. He’s also a big believer in making the most of trial periods to deeply assess a potential new team member before making things permanent. Alex believes that if someone you trust recommends an A-player, you should stretch your org chart or your budget to hire them even if you don’t have an open position.
But perhaps the most impactful way to reinforce your company’s values, is to exhibit them yourself. Alex sees his company’s values as “an operating system” for the business. For example, the value of “ownership” means that most deliverables are shipped without a higher level of management taking a look.
At Welcome Pickups, accountability is key. While important decisions are sometimes reviewed, Alex emphasizes fostering a culture where team members take full ownership of their work and deliverables, trusting them to drive projects forward with confidence and autonomy.
Jhonatan tries to model the difficult-but-valuable communication style he’s trying to instill in the company. “As a founder, you have to inspire your team. So you can't tell everyone all the mistakes that you've made because this is like a ship. You need the crew to believe in you,” he says. But when he has been difficult or spoken harshly, he welcomes criticism.
“I have a memory of speaking with my chief of regulatory, and after she sent me a message, ‘I don't know why you're talking to me like this, but this is not okay,’” he offers as an example. “I immediately called her and I said, ‘I just reflected on what you said and that was a mistake on my side. I completely missed the expectation that I built myself. I'm really sorry and it's never going to happen again.”
Hide or avoid moments of failure, when a leader or a team member fails to live up to a company’s ideals, and they will erode your culture. Face them head on and difficult moments can transform into even stronger values.