Building the mobile convergence Dream Team
by Vivek Khuller
It’s no coincidence that the DiVitas workplace is continuously buzzing. It’s an exciting place to work, and it was designed to be that way.
A year and a half ago, when I set out to launch this company, I knew my employees well. I didn’t know their names yet, but I knew exactly who they’d be. That’s because my team has been hand-picked for each person’s ability to fulfill the Five E’s that I think are important attributes to have in life: Edge, Energy, Energize, Execution, and Ethics. As a start-up we spend a lot of time together and synergy is everything. You need to like the people who you work with!
Creating this formula, and sticking to it without exception, has allowed me to build a team of people who think outside of the box, who come up with unique ideas, who work to resolve problems, who have a personality that simultaneously lets them laugh at a joke and work overtime to fix a bug. The DiVitas MMC solution, the first converged system to reach the mobile-communications market, is as unique as the team that engineers, markets and sells it. Our human resources manager (whose job isn’t to engineer, market or sell our product) wears his DiVitas polo shirt every day – to work, to the gym, wine tasting … as he says, “ya know, I represent.”
My best “five-minute” meetings take place on Castro Street when I grab one (or a few people) and we go for a stroll and knock around ideas and issues.
One day that distills the unique DiVitas environment is our ’06 Christmas party. We arranged a 7-hour hike in Muir woods, followed by pizza and beer at a trendy San Francisco pizzeria. Families included. Ties were not an option. The hike would be more challenging for some than for others, but we had a great turnout – not unexpected considering DiVitians thrive on a good challenge (and free food).
Yes, we are a team of 50+ individuals spread among three different countries. But we each have at least five things in common, and that’s what maintains harmony in the workplace.
