Walkover's Work Culture: How Our Team Disagrees, Appreciates and Steps Back
Walkover is a bootstrapped product company in Indore, India, the team behind MSG91, Giddh and viaSocket. This post collects what our Friday letters to the whole team said about work culture: appreciation, disagreement, judgement and knowing when to step back.
Products are built by people who spend most of their waking hours with each other. The Friday letters returned to this again and again: how to appreciate, how to disagree, how to stop judging, and when to step back. None of it is a policy. All of it is how a good team actually feels.
Appreciate, don't just wait to be appreciated
One letter separated two things we often mix up. Validation means you don't believe something about yourself until someone else confirms it. Appreciation means you already know it, and it's still nice when someone notices. Then it turned the question around:
It feels good to be appreciated, but have you tried appreciating? It too feels good.
Another letter made it a habit, "1 for 1":
For every positive statement made about you, return the favour. For every criticism, start with one piece of positive feedback. For every person you meet, give them a smile.
Stop judging, start noticing yourself
We are too quick in judging and too slow in self-reflection.
The next time you judge someone for their looks, their style of work or the way they think, one letter suggested asking yourself who appointed you the judge of someone else's life. Its answer to all of it was self-awareness:
When you know yourself, you are empowered. When you accept yourself you are invincible.
Disagree without falling apart
People will think differently, work differently and speak in a different tone. That's normal. One letter put the rule in four words:
मतभेद ठीक है, मनभेद नहीं
Differences of opinion are fine. Bad blood is not. Another letter, written for Republic Day, said the same thing for a whole country and a whole team:
You don't have to agree on anything & everything people around you think, but what needs to be agreed on is treating everyone with civility and dignity.
None of us really see things as they are, we see them as we are.
Less drama
A lot of drama comes from confusion and lack of communication.
The fixes were simple: check whether you're the source of the drama, don't feed other people's, focus on the present, and be compassionate. Above all:
Not everything needs a reaction.
Let people feel what they feel
Why can't we accept sad emotions; crying is after all a release of built-up emotions.
When someone smiles, we never tell them to stop. When someone cries, we rush to say "don't cry." The letters asked us to make room for both.
Your life, your choice
What works for you won't always work for someone else, and that's okay:
Your music, your dance. Your canvas, your colours. Your life, your choice.
And when someone keeps draining you:
Remember, you can be kind and still choose to walk away.
Put together, this is the kind of place the letters were describing: you're noticed, you're allowed to be different, and you're never alone with a hard week.
Drawn from 9 Friday letters: Why is it so hard to appreciate? · Once in a while, try to simply do nothing · Who has appointed you the judge of their actions? · God Bless Us · It's hard to keep an open mind if you don't have an open heart · Say Yes To No Drama · Why do we stop people from crying? · Why does your right has to be my right? · Do not allow anyone to walk in your mind with dirty feet
Want to work with us? See open roles at Walkover →