The Makings of Enduring Organizational Culture（持久组织文化的形成）

Culture has been described as the widening of the mind and spirit. At ThoughtWorks, we often encourage each other and ourselves to push the boundary, because that’s just our way of life. A way of life that draws from what is critical to us, to our company and having a purpose beyond making money.

文化被描述为心灵和精神的延伸。在ThoughtWorks公司，我们经常互相鼓励对方和自己向极限推进，因为这就是我们生活的方式，一种对于我们及我们公司而言至关重要、有除了赚钱外的追求的生活方式。

ThoughtWorks’ mission is to better humanity through software and help drive the creation of a socially and economically just world. As a leader in the organisation, my job, in addition to leading the India business, is to ensure organizational alignment and constantly drive the company towards the identified higher purpose. That’s more than just setting goals and measuring them; it moves into creating and nurturing a culture that supports the people and the organization’s objective.

ThoughtWorks的使命是通过软件更好的服务人类，帮助建立一个社会和经济公正的世界。我作为这个组织（ThoughtWorks）的领导者，工作除了引领印度业务外，便是确定组织定位和不断地推动公司向更高的目标发展；这不仅仅是设定目标和实现，它培育创造一种支撑公司的文化。

Through this article, I’d like to share my experiences and learnings from contributing to shaping ThoughtWorks’ culture.

通过这篇文章，我想分享我的经验和知识以塑造ThoughtWorks的文化；

Passion for Software Delivery

Many ThoughtWorks’ customers are known to have said, “ThoughtWorks succeeds where everyone else has failed”. Our customers rely on us and trust that we will deliver the best possible software, while optimizing and balancing various constraints like functionality, experience, cost, time, quality and more. And we deliver. Consistently. There are many cultural factors in play that make this possible. We value learning and collaboration over personal heroics. We do this at a project team level, internally within the organization and externally within the software community.

许多ThoughtWorks的客户常说“ThoughtWorks在其他人失败的地方成功了”。我们的客户依赖、相信我们能够交付最好的软件，同时优化和平衡各种约束，包括功能性、经验、成本、时间、质量等等。始终如一的是，我们交付了。有许多文化因素的作用使这成为可能。在项目团队建设中，内部有公司团队，外部建设软件社区。

ThoughtWorks consistently encourages evangelizing of the latest disruptive technologies through open source contributions, conferences and tech-community events (like Geek Night, Converge, Unplugged, VodQa), books authored by ThoughtWorkers, blogs and more. We have strong points of view and preferences for engineering approaches that support the ‘art and science of building great software’ - like Agile, TDD, Continuous Deployment and Code Pairing. This means that every corner of a ThoughtWorks office is inevitably filled with chatter from conversations, emails, group threads, pet projects, external technology trends all ultimately discussing the same thing - delivering great software.

ThoughtWorks一贯鼓励最新颠覆性技术的宣传，通过开源贡献、学术会议、科技社区活动（如Geek Night、 Converge、Unplugged、VodQa）、撰写书籍和写博客等方式。我们在工程方法上有强有力的观点和选择以支持“科学艺术地开发优秀软件”–比如敏捷开发、测试驱动开发、持续部署和代码配对。这意味着在ThoughtWorks办公室的每一个角落都充斥着喋喋不休地谈话、发邮件、group threads、pet projects、讨论外部技术趋势，一切都在讨论相同一件事：交付更好地产品。

Such passion calls for experimentation and risk-taking. ThoughtWorks expects this and celebrates it as the only route to true innovation. ThoughtWorkers are encouraged to question what they don’t understand and seek clarity for themselves and sometimes even on behalf of the company and the customer, when needed. Our software development processes support this ‘clarity seeking’. We regularly demonstrate working software to the customers and ask for feedback. We constantly communicate with teams using remote collaboration tools and many similar techniques.

这样的热情需要尝试和冒险。 ThoughtWorks认为这种生活方式才是真正创新的唯一途径。 ThoughtWorks的员工被鼓励提出他们不懂的问题，站在公司和客户的角度并且探索清楚答案。我们的软件开发进程需要这种’clarity seeking’。我们定期向客户演示工作软件并寻求反馈。我们不断地与团队进行沟通，使用远程协作工作以及其他类似的工具。

Investing in Meaningful Leadership Development

Leadership development often gets quickly reduced to skill building in many organisations. While a few organizations focus only on functional skill building, others do a better job of it by adding soft skills to the mix.

在许多组织中，领袖能力快速从技能培养中抹去。通常只有很少一些组织只关注功能性技术的培养，其他组织更多地通过学习软实力以弥补。

The key to meaningful leadership development is to create intuitive programs at regional and global levels that go beyond skill-building. This translates to collaborating with the regions to produce programs that achieve maximum collective impact, both for the business and for the people. Our learning programs are in line with ThoughtWorks’ mission and strategic goals. The content and agenda is designed around the program participants.

有意义的领导力的培养关键在于直接创造一个地区性或全球性的大项目以技能培养。和地区合作共同开发项目，这样的转化有利于在业务和参与者收获最大的影响。我们的学习计划符合ThoughtWorks的使用和战略目标。内容和议程由项目参与者所设计。

We introduced our Women in Leadership Development program (WiLD) that ensures that 60% of our global leadership development participants are women.The only goal of the WiLD programme is to ‘make an impact’ and sure enough, the participants have achieved incredible things.

我们推荐女性进入领导力培养项目组（WiLD）以确保项目组60%的参与者为女性。WiLD项目组唯一的目的是创造影响力，果然，参与者们完成了不可思议的事情。

Long-time ThoughtWorkers are known to invest time and effort when it comes to nurturing future leaders. This is simply because it makes good business sense. Grooming the next generation of leaders ensures cultural and strategic consistency. Also, leadership development at ThoughtWorks is not about roles or titles, it is about empowering the next generation with leadership skills.

很长时期以来，在将要培育出下一任领导时，ThoughtWorks的员工会投入大量的时间和精力，仅仅是因为有好的商业意义。培养下一代领袖可以确保组织文化和战略的一致性。而且，领导力的培养不仅仅事关角色和头衔，还是对下一代领导技能的授权。

We also believe deeply in what is also called Servant Leadership. Several traits like a flat organizational structure, participatory decision making and such are a direct result of our belief in this kind of leadership. At the same time, we work on developing strong leaders for the future, who have their own viewpoint and the operational resolve needed to drive a complex organization like ThoughtWorks forward.

我们深信这样的领导也可以被称为仆人领导。在仆人领导下有几个特质比如一个扁平组织结构，参与式的决策能体现我们个人的意愿。同时在未来，我们的工作将使领导们变得更强，他们的观点和解决方案可以驱使组织如ThoughtWorks不断前进。

Placing High Value on Multi-Dimensional Diversity

Diversity is not just a ‘good to have’ measurement for ThoughtWorks. We work hard to redress historic injustices and to handpick talented people with varying life experiences. In doing so, we also work towards ensuring a balance of ethnic backgrounds, race and genders. Tim Brown says “diverse minds that point to the same goal is something to take advantage of” and we completely identify with that philosophy.

在ThoughtWorks，多样性不仅仅是好的测量方式。我们努力纠正历史上的不公和挑选有不同生活经历的才子。在这一过程中，我们努力确保种族背景、种族和性别上的平衡。Tim Brown说不同的思想指向相同的目标，一定意义上只是利用。我们完全认可这种哲学观点。

Being responsive to diversity requires a working environment that is not just flexible and accommodating, but also actively leverages diversity. In India and from around the world, people from different backgrounds bring opinions, habits and attitudes that enrich the overall organizational outcome at ThoughtWorks.

多样性需要的不仅仅是灵活和适应性好的环境，更要能够积极利用多样性。在印度，来自世界各地和不同背景的人带来的观点、习惯和态度丰富了ThoughtWorks组织的结果。

Gender diversity is very dear to our heart. We actively mine for talented women technologists, from across the globe. Our leadership development programs specifically cater to the needs of talented women in the company, to enable their holistic growth.

性别多样性对于我们而言是珍贵的。我们积极从世界各地挖掘才华横溢的女性技术专家。我们的领导力培养项目专门迎合公司才女的需求，使她们整体获得成长。

Interestingly, this high focus on inclusivity does not make our recruitment that much harder. In fact, we attract people who like to work in and benefit from such rich collaboration. ThoughtWorkers understand that to be truly immersive, they need to meet, travel, interact and collaborate with teams all over the world. The fact that we have offices in 34 cities across 13 countries is reflective of our diversity. And the glue that holds everyone together is the undying passion for technology.

有趣的是，对包容性有如此高的要求并没有使我们的招聘变得更加困难。事实上，我们吸引那些热爱工作、喜欢从丰富的合作中获益的人。ThoughtWorks的员工需要真正的身临其境，他们需要被满足旅游、互动以及同其他世界各地的团队合作。我们在13个国家的34个城市设有办事处反映我们的多样性。使我们所有人粘合在一起的是对技术至死不渝的热情。

Cultivating an Open and Accepting Mindset

We cultivate a very progressive and reformist attitude towards technology and the world. For instance, we were quite vocal when discussing Section 66A or Section 377 or mass surveillance. We have been just as uninhibited when speaking on behalf of Net Neutrality and copyright and data security and protection.

我们致力于推动技术和世界的进步和改革。例如，当我们讨论66A或377条款以及质量监测时，我们畅所欲言；在谈论网络中立、版权、数据安全与保护时，我们不受约束。

The same freedom is afforded to every ThoughtWorker because we place people above processes and policies. Our internal systems are trust-based. We are a flat organization with decentralized decision making in place. Our global and regional leadership teams focus on building alignment rather than enforcing decisions taken within the confines of board rooms. It also means we expect people to be well read, understand the world of technology in more ways than just writing software, and help drive the use of technology in a way that benefits everyone.

ThoughtWork的员工都有着同样的自由，因为我们将人置于流程和政策之上。我们的内部系统是基于信任的。我们是扁平化的组织，决策是分散着的。我们的全球和区域领导团队更关注建筑是否对齐，相比于董事会施行的决策。这意味着我们期待人们能更好地阅读，以多种方式了解技术而不是只编写软件，这将帮助我们推动技术的发展，造福每个人。

Building a culture is often compared to the makings of a religion - both inspire fervour and rituals. Here, fervour is the deep identity with what the company says and does, while the ritual is working with clockwork regularity, as if one’s soul depended on it.

创建一种文化通常被比作宗教的创立，都有着相同的激发热情和仪式典礼。在这儿，热情才是身份的标识。无论公司说什么，做什么，仪式总是避不可少的。

A purposeful organization demands a strong culture. And that culture takes a lot of work to sustain. One of my more important learnings at ThoughtWorks has been that almost every decision, action and conversation contributes to our workplace culture. In order to sustain the kind of business we want, care has to be taken to protect and scale this culture.

一个有目的的组织需要一套强大的企业文化，并且这种文化需要大量的工作来维持。我在ThoughtWorks学到最重要的经验之一是，几乎每一个决定、行动和对话都有助于职场文化。为了维持这种我们想要的商业，必须要保护好这种企业文化。