M is for Menlo Innovations: Building An Intentionally Joyful Culture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=S__n7nhNSxQ

Menlo Innovations attracts many people who want to understand its culture. Many of these successful ideas are contained in Richard Sheridan’s book Joy, Inc.

Below are excerpts from the organisation’s website. You can discover move via the following link.

http://www.menloinnovations.com/joyinc/

What We Do

Our clients hire us to design and build custom software.

Our CEO, Richard Sheridan, elaborates on this by describing:

“We are like a custom homebuilder. If you have the house of your dreams in mind, you would want to find an architectural firm, a design firm, and a build firm to bring it to life.”

We do the same thing for software.

Our Mission

Our mission as an organization is to end human suffering in the world as it relates to technology™.

For our clients, we do this by creating software that is widely adopted and enjoyably used by their intended end users.

We do this through a unique set of practices that include High-Tech Anthropology®, paired programming, and working in an open and collaborative environment.

Within our organization, we achieve this mission by intentionally choosing to create a culture founded on the Business Value of Joy™.

Our CEO, Rich Sheridan, has written a book, Joy Inc. on why we decided to do that and how you can too.

To further our mission, we are also passionate about sharing our culture and processes with the world.

We offer workshops, books and tours to help others understand our methods, how they can be applied in other industries, and why they are so important to achieving successful outcomes within a team.

Culture

At Menlo, it’s our team that sets us apart. As a consulting company, we strive to provide a great design and end product.

However, if all we did was develop a great user interface, we’d consider that a failure.

Our greatest successes are clients who have implemented new problem solving strategies in their own organizations, based on the innovative and collaborative culture they’ve experienced at Menlo.

What’s the secret to Menlo’s influential culture?

The first step is to ensure that we have the right people on our team. Above and beyond the specific skill sets and experiences someone might bring, we look at kindergarten skills. Do you play well with others? Are you curious?

From there, team members enter an environment where constant learning and mentoring pervade all we do.

To achieve this we must connect with and influence those around us. Simply stating “I’m right, do it this way” won’t cut it at Menlo.

Our clients aren’t “told” what to do. Through problem solving together, clients both see and experience firsthand the effectiveness of Menlo’s processes.

Those who have personally worked through a challenge here are much more apt to adopt what they’ve learned, than those who only hear about it.

This perspective looks towards long term success, as opposed to a short-sighted view of the present alone.

In the end, the secret to our culture comes down to leadership.

The best type of leadership is that which helps those around you produce better results than they would on their own. It’s not about hierarchy or authority.

We want to develop leaders within Menlo who think about how to leverage their skills and experiences to support those around them.

We acknowledge that we all have room to grow in this area, but are committed to continuous improvement.

This is what team, innovation, and collaboration are all about.