Our principles

The culture eats strategy. Peter Drucker said, “Strategy is a commodity; execution is an art.” We agree. While strategy is essential, it is useless unless you can execute it. Our culture supports execution. Everyone owns our culture, and no tribe member is bigger than our culture. Either we believe it, or we don't. We believe it, we act on it, and everyone has the power to hold another person accountable to culture. Skills are learned, culture is a choice. We choose every day to live our culture.

Our tribe members actively keep the bar high and look out for these qualities precisely because this is what makes Arative the place where we want to work, day after day. Aratives need and expect other tribe members to go above and beyond. We believe that if a tribe member is given a pass for underperformance, that underperformance IS the new standard. This is not acceptable at Arative.

This also means allowing tribe members to make decisions, and expecting that they are going to make wrong decisions sometimes. Owners make wrong decisions too. People don't wake up in the morning and think, "I'm really gonna suck at work today!" People want to succeed. It's human nature, it's the Arative way.

"Don't fall in love with your product, fall in love with your customer." - Tony Robbins. We know that if we are adding value to our customers, we are also adding value to Arative. We are outward-focused, adding value for others, not inward focused. Innovation is in our DNA, but adding value is a mission.

We are focused on developing our people for the long-term, we are focused on long-term customer value, and we are focused on building long-term results. Do not mistake the long-term focus with the need for results; we require results. However, we will take long-term permanent results over short-term temporary results. We are focused on adding customer value, and we move with a sense of urgency. We are building a company that lasts, that takes time, focus, and effort.

We hire amazing people that build extraordinary systems. Everything we build is more than a product or process; it is part of a system.

Having systems:

• Forces us to think through the process and improve it.
• Allows for consistent and improved performance.
• Allows us to integrate new Aratives quickly.
• Allows us to easily implement new ideas, leaving time and brainpower to think, experiment and test those ideas.

When we look to add more complexity to the system, we start with "no" and try to disprove the hypothesis. Simple is hard; it requires deep understanding and thought. Enough said.

A forcing function is any task, activity or event that forces you to think about an action and produce a result. In interaction design, a forcing function is a means of preventing undesirable user input, usually made by mistake. At Arative, it means a set of circumstances that forces a decision to be made or which forces an action to be taken that previously had no hard deadline. Forcing functions are key to great execution. We engineer into the design/process/system functions that manage the outcomes.

We look to improve the entire ecosystem, not copy an existing player already in it. Even if it takes a longer cycle, we differentiate by doing it better, not copying, and finding better solutions. Proof of this is in our patented software. If you have ideas screaming to be heard, you have found the right place to voice them.

Resistance is a natural law; resistance builds strength. We lean into resistance, not away from it. At Arative, we define resistance as "Being so far ahead of the curve that the market, and market knowledge or common beliefs, have not caught up to our innovation. This resistance comes from the market, not our competitors."

Resistance rules we live by:

• We move away from easy work. Easy work, in general, will offer you less resistance. We focus on systemization and automation; small things done well absolutely matter.
• We gravitate towards hard work. Moving away from easy is the first step, but the task is not complete unless we follow this step by consciously gravitating toward hard work. There is an old saying: "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." We would add that the tough not only get going but also they are the ones growing.

When we think about new products, features, or processes, our answer is either "hell yes!" or "no!". We avoid the "7's and 8's" so we can focus on the "9's and 10's". If a product does it better than us, we look to buy, not build. Saying "no" to the mediocre saves time and energy to say yes to the stellar. Saying "no" to the request is not saying "no" to the person, and feeling empowered for saying "no" is usually a confirmation that it was the correct answer.

We obsess over our culture. We obsess over our tribe. We obsess over our customers, not our competitors. We obsess over our products. We obsess over processes, and we obsess over data. A culture of obsessing over the right details is a culture that executes.

While we obsess over data, data does not execute alone; people execute based on data. Our tribe's ideas aren't just appreciated, they're necessary. When it comes to the best ideas, the organization is flat. We work hard to hire the best people to get the best ideas; our success depends on it. When all else is equal, the idea with the best data wins (not the person with the biggest title). We recognize that as Aratives, we are interconnected, and individual ideas are best when they become tribal ideas.

Fight, flight, or freeze are natural responses. However, these natural tendencies can have negative outcomes. We believe that humans have the innate gift of self-awareness, taking a moment in crisis to choose which natural approach to take or choose a completely different option. We believe that being positive is not just a "nice-to-have" trait; it is required before you can choose a natural response or a completely new one. Stay positive.

Your ideas aren't just appreciated; they're necessary. We work hard to hire the best people so that we get the best ideas; our success depends on it. When all else is equal, the idea with the best data wins; and when it comes to the best ideas, the organization is flat. Arative is a meritocracy, and we know everyone has ideas. We recognize that as Aratives we are interconnected; individual ideas are best when they become tribal ideas.

Have you ever sat in a meeting and heard a terrible idea, but looked around the room, saw others nodding, and thought, "it must just be me". It wasn't; it is more likely that the culture you belonged to did not encourage you to speak up. You will not find that at Arative. We expect honesty and candor; we expect timely feedback. At Arative, there is no room for putting ego over results. If you disagree, say so. If you feel strongly that it is wrong, you are expected to continue communicating that opinion to the decision-maker. Some of our best decisions have been reversals of previous decisions. The leader will make a decision, it may or may not be your decision, but you will be heard. Once a decision has been made, it is time to execute that decision. Saboteurs are not tolerated at Arative.

Customization is the opposite of building systems; at Arative, we do not build one-off solutions. Requests for customizations are feature requests, we decide to build it for all customers, or we do not build it. Agreeing to customize violates multiple Arative principles and stifles innovation.

Speed matters in business; speed creates momentum; momentum carries us, do not lose momentum. We recognize that we cannot expect to meet our mission with a slow culture; by design, success is about moving forward and pushing innovation. Many decisions and actions are reversible; they do not need extensive study. We ask, "is the decision a one-way door or two-way door?". We are focused on "directionally correct", not "perfectional correct", we then adjust when needed or when more data becomes available.

Being bold at Arative means: being assertive, being direct, saying what you think, speaking up, but being respectful and being fair. We are bold in our work, in our behavior, in our attitude, in our desire, and in our interactions. Arative's mission requires boldness to fulfill; no one changed the world by being timid. If someone does not believe in our mission, then they are not on the right tribe; we will be happy to help you find the right one for you.