Mariano Szklanny’s Blog

In a previous post I commented about the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which we use as part of our mentoring process. In this case Diego Marcet, a new southy that joined the company a week ago, wrote a blog entry giving his impressions about this mentoring process. He says:

[...]

The first thing that caught my attention these first days is how much importance the company gives to communicate its philosophy of work. In all my previous jobs I always had a day or two for reading a couple of documents about the company and the project I would be working on, and immediately after that I’d start coding. Here it’s the opposite thing, first you have to focus on understanding the philosophy the company has and how they expect you to behave (like being proactive, collaborative with teammates, and so on)

[...]

I’m happy to see he understands this at his fourth day at the company because our culture is, in my opinion, what helped us be where we are and what will help us reach the next level as a company. Good start!

But don’t be scared - there is technology during the mentoring process too (we are a technology company!). As Diego says, one of the first things you learn is Test Driven Development and Scrum. But what I want to highlight here is that first we try to prepare our southies in a environment where they can safely fail and learn our culture, so that when it’s their time to tackle real-world business challenges, they are better prepared.

Want to learn more about our culture? See the Mindsets and Core Values.

This is a question I made myself many times:

What book would you recommend to a guy that is new to your company?

or even this one:

What book would you recommend to a guy that is new to your company, who has never programmed Object-Oriented and who has never worked with .NET or Java?

Typical answers would be something like Thinking in Java or Introducing Microsoft .NET. And yes, these books would probably be included in my answer. But at Southworks our culture does not stop at technology. Technology is a key part in the company’s culture, but technology on its own is not enough. At Southworks, our core is the people.

Damian is a young guy that has just joined the company. In fact, he is the youngest member of the company; when he entered he was only 17 years old. As part of his initial training, we asked him to read the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (together with other technical books).

Why this book? Because at Southworks we pursue most of the things this book promotes. This book is not about technology at all - it is about personal and professional development, and it is in line with Southworks’ culture.

Damian has just finished reading the book and did a great post about it. In the last paragraph, he says:

In an utopic society values would be the center stone, and most habits in this book would be followed by all, but it is not the case.

I couldn’t agree more. However, Damian, do not be frustrated - at least at Southworks you will find people that place values and these habits in the core of their life. And that, I believe, makes Southworks a special company and a great place to work at.