What’s in a name?

People frequently ask us why team members at Wistia have formal titles even though we’re such a small company. This is a great question and something that I’ve asked myself. Let’s see how we decided to go with the titles we use now.
Over time, through trial and error, I’ve discovered the secret to a team getting tons of work done: give people autonomy, ownership, and the power to make change.

Autonomy - freedom from external control or influence; independence

Are you more excited to do what you want to do or what you’re told to do? What kind of problem do you find more motivating? Giving people autonomy to find the problems that they think deserve to be solved and to solve these problems their own way is incredibly motivating.

We want everyone who is at and will be at Wistia to have the freedom to solve problems the way they see fit. One reason we opted to “round up” on titles instead of “rounding down” is so that everyone understands that each team member has this autonomy.

Ownership - the state or fact of being an owner

The biggest challenge of running a startup is deciding what to do next. What should we do tonight, tomorrow, next week, or next year? We’ve handled a part of this decision making process by making sure that one person has ownership over each critical part of the business.

When we make decisions about which feature, partnership, or marketing strategy to pursue next, we always have someone fighting from the perspective of each aspect of the business. This helps us keep all the parts of the company balanced and make smarter decisions. Using this approach, people end up fighting pretty hard for what they believe in.

Power to make change - the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events

Our approach would not work if we had a crew of people generating ideas and one person enacting them. We need everybody to have the power to make change. This can mean having the authority to push “send” on a newsletter, sign a partnership, or commit code. (Side note: Jeff, our Director of Customer Happiness, decided it would be a good idea to commit his code in his first week on the job helping people with support. He wanted to fix a recurring support issue by improving the product instead of creating a canned email.)

Where does this leave us?
We have a team of people fighting to get things done, make the right decisions, and having fun. If that means that our titles are a little more formal than you would find elsewhere, that’s fine with me.

Mar
10

What’s in a name?

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Notes

Mar 10

Recent comments

Notes

Mar
10