Millennials are all about me but everyone is building teams – how can this work?

“At 8squad, we are creating a model that allows our people to self-manage their careers. We are all about changing the way things have always been done and moving towards a model that empowers people, drives entrepreneurialism, puts we before me and spreads power across all levels of the business.”

What happens when the professional life battles the personal life?

“At 8squad, we believe in a holistic approach to driving high performance. While a fantastic company culture, L&D and career growth are components of this for us here at 8squad, it is also about helping our employees understand their bodies and mind, putting health & wellness at the forefront of our business to drive excellence and happiness inside and outside of work.”

How do teams deal with the democratic dictatorship – everyone has a say but I will make the decision?

“We believe in breaking the wheel. Typically a lot of companies work on a convergent workforce where one person sets the culture and if you don’t fit in with that person’s ideas or ways you will struggle to belong. We believe in changing this and moving our workforce to a divergent model, where we allow our people to create numerous sub- cultures throughout our teams. To create their own values and missions that while aligning with the company strategy give them the freedom to be who they are and have a place where they belong.”

“How many times have you heard “this is the way we do things here” or “this is always the way it’s been done” or even “you just have to accept it”. At 8squad, these phrases don’t exist, we encourage a true environment of innovation and change, we want to help change the way things have always been done and move corporate environments from a central point of power where everyone is desperately trying to get to that one position to a point where that power and authority is spread throughout the business.”

Building a better mousetrap has been a marketing case study for decades – how does culture work on building a better professional?

We believe the best investment you can ever make is in your people. As such we have programs dedicated to identifying and subsequently releasing our employees into their passions and strengths. We look to focus on making our people consciously aware of themselves and what they need to do on a daily basis to feel satisfaction and a sense of achievement. We then take this to the next level focusing on educating our people on their communication voices and the importance of what we need to do to ensure that everyone is heard and valued ensuring that the collective is put before the individual.

How do you make the sum of a teams parts bigger?

“A big principle @ 8squad is the collective over the individual. So many of us have been born into different situations that have developed gifting’s in our lives. While we absolutely want to play to those individual gift’s we also want to educate you on not just how to do that but how to use those gifts to LIFT those around you in the organisation. We are building this business on the premise that as those around you do better, so will you.”

We before me?

“At 8squad we have 3 values for hiring people. 1. Absolute Dedication to Personal Excellence; 2. Absolute Dedication to Service Excellence; 3. We before me; The reason we have chosen these values is because we want great well rounded people who want to understand how to be the best possible version of themselves. For us here at 8squad it’s not just about investing in our people professionally, it’s about investing in them personally so they can achieve excellence in all areas of their lives. Most importantly however we want a culture the puts the collective first, our customers, our colleagues, our family and our friends. For as WE succeed, the individual will also succeed.

Frank Cuiuli, 8Squad’s CEO on our core values