Boards have to study Uber values for culture lessons

Uber has had inarguable impact on urban commutes. FILE PHOTO | NMG 

By CAROL MUSYOKA

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Summary

• Is it time to rewrite company’s values, looking at their count and assessing some that may be hurting building team spirit?

Always be hustlin” is number seven out of 14 core cultural values of Uber, the company that has globally transformed the way city residents commute.

Well at least those were the 14 core cultural values when founder Travis Kalanick led the organisation from 2010 until his game-faced resignation as CEO in 2017 following an embarrassing video recording of an altercation between Kalanick and an Uber driver together with reports of widespread sexual harassment, bullying and discrimination within the firm.

The reports were verified by an independent investigation undertaken by two law firms after interviewing more than 400 staff and reviewing more than three million internal documents.

Kalanick was recorded on video having an argument with one of his drivers about some of the company’s rate reductions.

“People are not trusting you anymore,” to which Kalanick replied, “Some people don’t like to take responsibility for their own s***. They blame everything in their life on somebody else.”

A conversation that was clearly straight out of the Uber core values play book, of which value number three states “Meritocracy and Toe-Stepping” read together with value number four which states “Principled Confrontation”.

Kalanick’s Oscar award winning apology quickly followed the video’s viral publication. “I must fundamentally change as a leader and grow up. This is the first time I’ve been willing to admit that I need leadership help and I intend to get it.”

Uber’s eight-year exponential growth into a global commuter solution provider, valued at $68 billion as at October 2017, is nothing to sniff at.

Even though it came at the great cost of employee well-being and boardroom governance issues, its impact on the entrepreneurial capacity of ordinary citizens in multiple countries is praise worthy.

I recently met Martin (not his real name) in Johannesburg, where he works as a senior manager at one of South Africa’s largest financial institutions. Martin’s five-year-old son goes to a school about 7km from where they live and it was costing him 3,000 South African rand a month (Sh25,800) to pay for school transportation.

In an “always be hustlin” spark, Martin bought a vehicle and recruited a driver. “It was a no-brainer,” Martin tells me. “The driver drops off my son and picks him up every day. In between, he makes up to 7,000 rand per week (Sh60,200).

After netting off fuel, the driver gives Martin about 2,000 rand (Sh17,200) weekly which Martin entirely uses to pay for the car’s financing and insurance and the driver keeps the rest as his earnings which amount can range from 2,000-4,000 rand (Sh17,200 - 35,400) per week.

“I will be breaking even for 18 months, after which the car will be fully paid off and then I can see profit,” he surmises. “But most importantly, I’ve found a cheaper solution to transport my son to school that gives someone employment and also puts money in my pocket.” I’m sure this story is replicated here in Kenya.

One of the recommendations that came out of the Uber investigations were to reformulate the company’s values (14 are unusually many and quite difficult to inculcate as a a culture) especially seeing as some were seemingly promoting self-seeking (such as toe-stepping) at the expense of building a team spirit.

READ: Women still far behind men in formal jobs, says study

More importantly, following protracted boardroom struggles to reduce Kalanick’s power on the board that culminated in a law suit, a refreshed governance structure was formulated following a billion-dollar investment by Softbank. The Uber board has now been expanded from 11 to 17 members, four of whom are independent directors.

While a seventeen-member board is unwieldy at best, and a strain for any normal person to chair, it is the unintended outcome of a founder CEO’s unfettered grip to power over a fast-growing organisation that has had an inarguable impact on urban commutes, entrepreneurship and employment.

The jury remains out as to whether this new governance structure at the top, together with a new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, will be sufficient to change an unhealthy organisational culture while maintaining the strong growth momentum it has enjoyed.

“Culture is written bottoms up,” was one of Khosrowshahi’s initial statements upon taking up the CEO job. Only time will tell whether the new CEO can upend the trend that cultural norms start at, and are set by, the apex of an organisation.