Culture is Our Competitive Advantage

When asked: AMLers named five reasons as to why they choose to work at AML: culture, trajectory, team, flexibility, and transparency. Over the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing blog posts diving deeper into each one of these concepts. This first post is about AML’s journey - myself as CEO, AML’s leadership team, and our crew of AMLers - down the path of culture as a competitive advantage. Spoiler alert for executive leaders: personally, this was a very challenging journey for me. Spoiler alert for prospective recruits: AML’s culture won’t adapt to you. You must adapt to it.

The departure point on this journey was simple: strategy is meaningless unless you have a team that actually, really, truly wants to win using the strategy that you’ve designed. Think: how often is strategy a document that sits on a shelf while the real world rolls by? I approached my now-CEO coach, asking for assistance with our strategy problem. Shannon’s answer: “It doesn’t matter…yet.” I was hooked.

We built our cultural foundation with named core values. What does this mean? We made explicit the expected behaviour of AMLers by codifying the values that we hold in the highest regard. These weren’t vanilla values: be kind, be honest, speak with respect, have integrity. In our view, that should be everyone. Instead, we identified the next-level values that described the way we want to be and the way we want to operate.

The power here is incredible if, and only if, these values become truly alive. We screen, recruit, promote, and release based on those core values. We’re looking for people who want to contribute to the success of a team. We’re looking for people who intuitively understand the needs of their fellow players. Our core values reflect these expectations. When we can’t find candidates who match our value profile…we wait.

But core values alone won’t carry the day; we learned that the hard way! We added in two other foundational constructs: an explicit core purpose (“What are we here to achieve?”) and a common stretch goal (“Where do we want to be in ten years?”). Core values ensure we have the right people on the bus (or perhaps the ship). Our core purpose and our stretch goal help to align those people so that we’re all rowing in the same direction. We also guide people with a single number: “THE SCORE”. We see business as a game: it needs a score.

The foundation above hardly sounds like a dial-and-lever approach to managing culture. We reinforced the foundation with some additional practices: daily huddles, values-based shoutouts, quarterly reviews, and individual metrics. Each of these pieces is designed to reinforce each employee’s direct contribution to group success - they generate rhythm, transparency, direction, and connection. This group of people can now win as a team.

When designed well, these additional practices allow us to create business advantage, while simultaneously allowing us to guide and direct culture. How? Essentially, they connect culture to daily practice, to execution. They connect the fluffy - the kitten - to the tangible - financial results, employee engagement, and customer delight.

Have we made mistakes along the way? Mayday, mayday: have we ever. I think, though, I can confidently say that we’ve learned important lessons from each and every one of those missteps. When we first tried our hand at core values, we chose six. I now know that six is far too many for anyone - even superstar employees - to keep front of mind. Unsurprisingly, there was zero impact. We had put everything we hoped for on the list. Several attempts later, I can confidently say we have three core values that have been brought to life at AML.

So what exactly is the AML culture? We operate as a team, where group success is more important than individual success. There is zero tolerance for drama and office politics. We put incredible emphasis on transparency. We expect all of our players to contribute with their heart and their head as well as their hands.

I listed two spoiler alerts at the start of this blog. I mentioned that this had been a challenging journey for me, as CEO, in two senses. To get the ball rolling, I had to do exactly the kinds of things that were most uncomfortable for me. I had to challenge people who were clearly displeased to be in huddles - think negative body language, sour expressions - in front of our colleagues. After several private conversations with these individuals, I needed to step into confrontation in a public setting. Again and again, I learned that the next thing to do to move the dial was exactly the thing that I had been hoping to avoid. I understood when acting as CEO, you must walk the talk 110% of the time. Second - once it was rolling, I had to understand that I wasn’t culture’s owner. Culture - or at least its definition - was no longer within the realm of CEO authority. I had to let go.

Spoiler alert for candidates: if you are a learner, and a team player, and maybe just a little competitive…and if you think the sky's the limit…chances are you’ll love AML. If that’s not you, then, well, that’s not you.

In 2023, AML is one of the very few organizations that nurture and maintain culture. This is not just corporate marketing: our Glassdoor reviews boast a score of 4.7 on 5. Similarly, our eNPS score is incredibly high, with a +62 response to the question: “Do you enjoy working at AML?”. As AML accelerates into the future, we are able to cite our corporate culture as both an advantage and a differentiator, one of the five main reasons AMLers continue to choose us.

Keep an eye on our careers page for more exciting updates as AML continues to build upon our momentum.