From The Leadership

1. We have open doors and open minds

We do our best to make sure we’re available to everyone. We are open to hear ideas and try them out. We listen to all compelling arguments until the best idea wins (even if it’s not our own). There are many wonderful things that we do very well, others where we are still learning to do better and we put a lot of emphasis on ensuring we keep learning. We are open to being wrong and we want feedback from everyone to help us make things better. However, transparency ≠ democracy because there will be times where we have more context. We want you to have a voice, but that does not mean you always have a vote. Once a decision is made we all need to do our best to get behind it. 

2. We will be transparent

We share our  good metrics and our bad metrics, we share our decisions and the reasons behind them, and we have many open forums including “Ask Me Anything”, Q&A time at town halls and access to us on a regular basis where you can ask for more details. We believe the default of the org should be to share openly wherever possible and that will always be our approach.

Sometimes, situations require us to be a little less transparent – we share “the right information to the right people at the right time”. This requires two-way trust – us to you and you to us.  We anticipate withholding information or limiting it to only a select few people in the following circumstances, where we:

• want to treat Wavers with integrity and protect their dignity
• are in the middle of analysis and don’t yet have a clear way forward and want to avoid putting you on an emotional rollercoaster as we figure things out
• are making strategic decisions about the business and are evaluating options in a very fast-paced world.

3. We win or lose together

This is the order: [Good Person] + [Gritty & Determined] + [Smart / Creative / Innovative]. The order is non-negotiable. You need to care about our customers, our bottom line, our culture, our solutions because Wave is our company, this is our culture, these are our customers. We lead from the front.

We are run by a hierarchy of great ideas and not by a hierarchy of status or power.

Entitlement at any level makes us cringe.

4. We are considerate of time and money

We are punctual because start up minutes are like dog years. Meetings will always include the fewest people possible for the maximum amount of idea and information sharing. Meetings take place in 5 minute increments. Don’t use an hour if you can use 45 mins. Don’t use 45 if you can use 30.

This is, by no definition, a cushy 9-5 job. But, our pact with you is that we will never take advantage of that fact.

We choose the tools that are best suited to do our job effectively and efficiently.  The people who will use the tools most should have the largest say in which ones are chosen. We always take the extra time to fully understand the cost of a tool, licensing fees, implementation and distraction and we are careful not to fall into the trap of “new and shiny”.

The way we use our capital is very important.  A dollar used here is a dollar we can’t use somewhere else.  We make our decisions with this knowledge in mind and we use our capital like it’s our own.

5. We will grow, grow, grow

Growth is our fuel. Growing people, growing ourselves, growing the business this is what drives us.  The statement “great…now how do we go further?” is how we are wired. We are pursuing bold ambitions that require consistent movement and iteration. Change will be a constant and as leaders we take on the responsibility to communicate and transition the changes with care. This is a practice that will continue to develop and requires patience. We encourage everyone to seek more information or clarification to align on the direction.

Part of our spirit dies when we feel the status quo is being upheld. We feel a burning desire to innovate and make things better. Things change and we move fast, and we know that this isn’t the right environment and culture for everyone. We will not tolerate competent  jerks, people that are not interested in growing or individuals who put themselves before our customers, our team and our business. This harms morale for everyone, affects our culture, and slows us down. We want people who inspire others and are driven to make everyone else around them better.

6. We are all owners, we are all leaders

You own your Wave experience.  Those that do best here don’t get asked to do something… they see a need and they fill it with a focus on the customer, through personal competence and by building bridges with their peers. We work hard and celebrate hard. We’d rather go down swinging on national TV than never have gone up to bat. We internalize and learn from our losses even more than we celebrate our wins. Someone else on our team getting kudos feels as good as getting them ourselves.

As leaders, we hold everyone accountable to our collective strategy, execution and contribute to our culture. We want to hear when we are not aligned on purpose, vision and our values. We trust that the conversation will always begin with respect and purposefully aim to better ourselves or a decision. Put up your hand.  In big companies no one wants to stick their necks out, they want to hide. Here we put up our hands and say “I want to help fix this even if it means taking risk”.

7. T-Shaped people are valuable

Designers, engineers, support heroes, sales people, marketers, product managers, researchers, executives, PhD’s, drop-outs, Waterloo and UVic grads–you understand and appreciate that it takes the combo of all to make our best product and service.

We look for T-Shaped Wavers who have a breadth of knowledge across many topics and a depth of expertise in a specific few. A strong skill breadth means no fear when approaching a problem. We grow faster and have a greater impact on the product when we think outside the bounds of a tech stack and methodology. We also need to be flexible and willing to embrace the opportunity that unlocks the most customer value.

Skill depth means we’re looking for Wavers who are better than us, and who will level-up their teams. We’ll undoubtedly rely on your area of deepest expertise, and we expect you to teach us something.  All in all, we want people who strive for excellence and then take that further, and we want people who make us all better people, better leaders, better solutions for our customers.

8. We reward performance

We take pride in our ability to attract world-class talent. We also understand that in a hot market competing for people just like you, you made the choice to work here and in return, we want to ensure that we are recognizing you and rewarding you for the value that you add. We view salary as a component of a total rewards package including benefits, options and growth opportunities. Our plan is to compensate very well for great talent. Where there are gaps, we will close those as fast as we can.

We review salaries with the following in mind:

• equity, not equality, means people get rewarded for their contributions and those that do better get more.
• skill level, experience and consistent results over time
• market rates for roles requiring similar skill, experience and performance and;
• overall company performance and budget.

These conversations are not negotiations. We will be transparent about the market rate information we have and we encourage conversation promoting feedback on performance and growth potential. We hope that you understand that we balance your personal situation and the bigger picture using uncompromising integrity to get to the decision we do.