Why Culture Matters

We have a saying here: “we design our culture like we design the product.” Culture is the most important foundation for a successful company. A great culture provides the context for people to deliver their best work.

Our Culture

"A company becomes the people it hires and not the plan it makes." - @vkhosla

Culture is a set of shared values and principles. Everyone on the team is responsible for maintaining the culture as the best cultures derive from actions we take. We break our culture down into the following:

• Core Values - Behaviors and traits we value in individuals. Determines who gets hired, promoted, or let go. (It’s not ping-pong tables and free food. We define those as perks.)
• Principles - What we expect of ourselves, in terms of how we act, how we make decisions, and how we win.

Core Values

Below are our values, the specific behaviors and skills we care about most. The more these values sound like you, and describe people you want to work with, the more likely you will thrive at Otis.

We hire team members who resemble GRIT. “Grit is number one. It’s foundational to everything else. You will encounter failure after failure after failure, and frustration after frustration. The people who become better the harder things get are the ones that are going to fly.”

Here are our core values:

• **Growth Mindset** - believes that basic talents and abilities can be developed over time; constantly challenges themselves to grow.
• Resourcefulness - finds creative solutions to impossible problems; always looking for leverage - how to do more with less.
• Impact - drives results, GSD, and works on initiatives that meet ambitious goals.
• Team Player - working together to achieve a shared goal.

Principles

This is what we expect of ourselves, in terms of how we act, how we make decisions, and how we ultimately win.

• Be direct — we are transparent and honest with each other.
• Keep it simple — we edit to make things easier to understand, use and create.
• Maintain speed and quality — we move quickly and execute with precision.
• Ruthlessly prioritize — we focus on a few of the best ideas that drive impact.