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Culture is how people make decisions when there’s no one else in the room to help.
Our values act as that filter to our actions. Think of the values as your internal GPS that should guide your actions and decisions.
We are athletes in the sport of business. In every sport or discipline, you have different values and behaviors that you need to embody as an athlete to win. What makes a great athlete? Great athletes go above and beyond in training, give true and honest feedback to their teammates regardless of how harsh, invest in every aspect of themselves to improve and grow, feed their mind not only their body, and generally they want to be the best at what they do.
To win in the sport of business, companies must recruit the best athletes. The best athletes work hard on improving themselves.
We believe the best athletes embody the values described below.
GOWKII is an acronym for those values.
What you do is a behavior ⇒ I give my 110% in training.
Why you do it is the value ⇒ because I value growth.
“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career
I’ve lost almost 300 games
26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed
I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life
and that is why I succeed” - Michael Jordan
Watch the full video here 👇
Growth with Michael Jordan
Only obsessed people end up changing the world, and the world can be their own life, their family’s life, and the actual world. Obsession in combination with the other values is a recipe for making positive change.
Watch this short video to understand the mindset of champions - bits from Usain Bolt, Serena Williams, Michael Phelps, Neymar, and Lebron James.
We are playing in a high-performance sport team and our goal should be to win. We should value winning because this is when we value the game, the obsession, and the drive to be the best in every project and every environment we are in.
Established as a “yo-yo” with great losses at their beginnings in the 1800’s, Manchester United won their first league title in 41 years in 1952 becoming the first English club to compete in Europe and this is when tragedy hit A plane carrying the team crashed on the way to Munich claiming the lives of 8 of their players.
Newly recruited players would go on to start the winning journey of Manchester United, from being the first English club to achieve the treble to achieving 20 top-flight league titles, 13 FA Cups, 6 League Cups, and a record 21 FA Community Shields since inception. Manchester United didn’t only affect the football scene but changed the fashion, entertainment, and retail world. Manchester United's legacy is not just a football club but an institution that embodies the spirit of determination, and achievement through the beautiful game.
Read the full story here
Kindness is often something we do and often not talk about at Calo. Kindness goes hand in hand with the other values because it should be a combination that goes together as a recipe.
"I shall pass this way but once; any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again” ― Etienne de Grellet
What do Patagonia, Ben & Jerry’s, Bombas, Warby Parker, and KIND have in common?
We look for the truth even if it’s against us and we act on it even if it’s not in our best interest. The best athletes win right and ethically.
This value gets us out of bed every day. We are extremely lucky to be in a position where if we do a good job, someone’s life becomes better. Impact is about being intentional with our actions and being mission-driven with wanting to do good in the world.
The best athletes are not self-centered. They know that it’s their duty to perform. They perform to leave positive impact on those around them, and on the game itself.
A great story of impact is how Tesla disrupted the car industry. They open-sourced their patents because they cared more about their mission than profits, changing the direction of production, and setting the benchmarks for a sustainable automotive industry.
Read the full scoop here.
Those are a set of behaviors that we believe the best athletes act on. They could be looked at as principles that guide our way to winning. Such behaviors are baked from our values. What you do is a behavior, why you do it is a value.
Our individual purposes are different as we wear different hats at Calo, but our collective objective should be WINNING in the sport of business.
Always be on the customer’s side - that’s a clear recipe to win. The customer wants you to be a sustainable business so you continue delivering value to them.
The story of Zappos is a story we always look back to when it comes to serving customers
Embrace the growth mindset - trade short-term suffering for long-term gain. Everyone is capable of pretty much anything if they want it badly enough.
Seek & share the truth from a place of love, not fear - we often are scared of sharing our honest feedback with others because we care for them and don’t want to hurt their feelings (or at least we tell ourselves so). The right action is to share that feedback because we care for them, and to realize that we hurt them more by holding back their growth.
Think big, start small, scale fast - thinking big is almost more rewarding. Don’t let that cripple you from action though, start with what you have - take the first step now. Once you start and validate you’re on the right path, move fast to reach to that big vision.
“The future belongs to those who are fast” - Jim Carroll
Efforts don’t matter, results do - “Successful people don't value effort or work or time spent on an activity; they value the results. Unsuccessful individuals attach great importance to the time they spend at work and their attempts at getting results—even if nothing happens”.
It doesn’t matter what you think, it matters what the market wants - building and running a business is very humbling. It’s never about you. It’s always about who you’re serving.
Winners are proactive about finding the problem - there is no progress without feedback, for you and others around you. Never take a backseat and say “No one told me if I’m doing good or bad” so, instead take the proactive approach and ask for feedback, work on it, ask for help, rationalize, listen, and run with things. You will feel it and hear it once you are on the right track. If people don’t make progress, Calo doesn’t make progress.
Quoting Uncle Ben here (yes, we added a quote from Spiderman) in saying “With great power comes great responsibility” , you have all the power you need to make a change in the customer’s lives no matter what position you hold, hone your power, and do great things.
The winning company will be the one that serves its customers the best 🚀