Learning from the past of what not to do - Doug Bester

Doug Bester, CEO of Sentient Computing, shares how his time in working in traditional engineering environments gave him a clear guide of what not to in creating a leading edge virtual reality company that draws on local talent within the computer gaming community.

Sentient Computing is a Perth-based software development company that specialises in providing powerful and immersive virtual environments particularly in the resource sector.

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My key learning nuggets from the conversation:

• Interesting comparison observation recognising the significant difference between older ‘traditional’ engineering culture and more modern workplace cultures

• ‘traditional’ engineering culture provided a lot of evidence of what not to do – work people hard, extract the most out of every employee and project, soley focused on money at all costs

• Traditional culture based on competitive, ‘one upmanship’ testosterone fuelled way of doing things is destructive to the wider culture and performance, particularly with its quick route to anger

• Motivate a workforce on vision more than money

• Any diversity in a high performing team is better and more creative – however not necessarily easier as there is a lot more conversations and communication involved

• The transition to more discursive, more voices included, culture can be challenging

• Culture of encouraging failure as this is where the leading edge is

• Look at the company more holistically across projects and services rather than milk as much profit from each individual project – ‘the next project’ is the most important and building a trusted relationship with the client

• Too much process and procedure can stifle creativity

• Ensure teams understand their role in the culture is key to share the responsibility

• Culture – if you can create a place where they enjoy being at work, then you’ve cracked it this includes encouraging:

  • Autonomy

  • Mastery

  • Vision

• Also, actively asking employees what they want to do when they leave the company – thus creating a personal vision. Then create opportunities for each employee to work towards that. This can often support retention.

• Everyone has a voice, but it must be clear that not everything will be acted upon

• The leadership must have authentic care – very powerful

• Culture is dynamic and an ongoing conversation

• There is a link between mental health, authentic care and performance.

• Many of the current workforce are anxious, often overtly so as opposed to the old school ‘bottle it up and carry on’, this transparency is a good thing despite being at odds with the more traditional ways of showing up to work.

• Rather have an anxious person who is honest about their state rather than someone who bottles it up and at some point inevitably implodes