A few words about working at nuvem

I asked the nuvem team to send me a few words they would use to describe working here. To be fair, the moment I sent the message I immediately regretted it.  I assured everyone they didn’t have to be nice, and that anything they said would not be used against them (in a court of law!).  I suspect some thought it was a trap (including Luiz who did not provide his word!).

These are their words:

Dynamic. Agile. Collaborative. Supportive.  Inspiring.

I swear no one was bribed and yes they may have been glazing me, but honestly? I got a little weepy!

nuvem is dynamic because no two days feel exactly the same. Every client is different. Every finance team has its own way of doing things. Every implementation has at least one moment where we all pause and say, “Okay… let’s unpack that.” (only Damon uses this phrase btw). But also because we have to be!  The world seems to be moving at warp speed and we’re just trying to keep up.  You only need an employee handbook when your first employee asks for one.  You only need a vacation tracker when someone asks to take vacation.  We have to learn and develop new skills everyday.  All of us.

Agile feels right too. For us, it means we stay flexible. We have a plan, but we don’t cling to it when things change.  We don’t need to stick to the plan if the plan no longer serves us.  It reminds me of the only thing I remember from Econ 101: the notion of sunk costs.  A sunk cost is any money, time, or effort that has already been spent and cannot be recovered. And rational people should treat these costs as irrelevant in decision making.

We are collaborative. Expertise does not develop in a vacuum. We figure things out together — with each other and with our clients. The best solutions usually come from a conversation, not from one person sitting alone pretending they magically know everything.  The number of times I’ve messaged “I need your eyeballs” I can’t even count!

Supportive.  This one really tugged at my heart strings mostly because this is always who I wanted to be when I grew up.  An old boss of mine (Damon!) once told me there were two kinds of managers: mirrors and windows.  The job was to be a window for praise of your team (pass it through and don’t take the credit for their wins) and a mirror for criticism (protect the team and triage). This makes me feel like we really are building this energy here.

And inspiring?  This one feels big. We implement accounting software. We are not saving the world.  But the simple notion that maybe what Luiz and I are trying to build here is inspiring others with ideas to give them a try.  We make A LOT of mistakes but half the fun is in the trying. 

xoxo Salma